tXK b ^ k 

• F 7 s 


THE 


CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM 
MOVEMENT. 


BY 



W. E. FOSTER, 

Author of “The Literature of Civil-Service Reform in the United States 



BOSTON: 

Press of Rockwell and Churchill, 39 Arch Street. 
1881. 

































r 











































































■>» 



















































THE 


CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM 
MOVEMENT. 


BY 



W. E. FOSTER, 

ff 

Author of “ The Literature of Civil-Service Reform in the United States.” 



H 






j=lS 


NOTE. 


The following study of some of the distinguishing 
features of the civil-service reform movement was under¬ 
taken by the writer, chiefly for the purpose of defining 
the grounds of his own belief. It has been thought by 
the executive committee of the Boston Civil-Service 
Reform Association that its publication would be of ser¬ 
vice to others who may be studying the subject. In the 
hope that it may contribifte, in some degree, to a more 
intelligent consideration of the subject, the writer has con¬ 
sented to its publication. 


Providence, R. I., Nov. r, 1881. 



FABLE OF CONTENTS. 




PAGE 


Chapter 

I. 

The reform is not undemocratic. 

3 

Chapter 

II. 

It 

is 

not unconstitutional 

8 

Chapter 

III. 

It 

is 

not impracticable . 

. . 11 

Chapter 

IV. 

It 

is 

not unbusiness-like 

. . 22 

Chapter 

V. 

It 

is 

not indefinite ... 

. 28 

Chapter 

VI. 

It 

is 

not unnecessary . 

• 37 

Chapter 

VII. 

It 

is 

not destructive 

. 44 

Chapter VIII. 

It 

is 

not opposed to public sentiment . 50 


Appendix. The Pendleton bill.67 

Index. 7 2 


































































































































































CHAPTER I. 


THE REFORM IS NOT UNDEMOCRATIC. 

Considering the origin of our government, and the 
manifest intent of the founders of the republic to make 
this “ a government of the people, by the people, and 
for the people,” this point becomes of the highest im¬ 
portance. It has been claimed that it is undemocratic. 
Yet is it not the spoils system which is undemocratic, 
rather than the proposed reform? The very concep¬ 
tion of a democracy necessitates a government “for the 
people.” Yet how can that government be so described, 
in which the civil service is regarded not as a service for 
the public, but as a source of emolument and gain to a 
few? When the end in view is not the advancement 
of the public interest , 1 but the chance of strengthening 
one’s self, rewarding one’s party friends, and punishing 
one’s party opponents, the system is one of private pat¬ 
ronage, and not public service. 

The Nation well says: “Few persons are aware to what 
an extent patronage has perverted free institutions and 
created a governing class or caste exercising irresponsible 
power under republican forms. Patronage controls con¬ 
ventions, conventions make nominations, the nominees 
control patronage, and so the circle is complete. It is 
this which goes by the name of the machine. The sys¬ 
tem is subversive of free government, in the sense that 
free government implies the unbiassed rule of the ma¬ 
jority.” 

Not only is the result of this system the introduction of 
r.n aristocratic principle intq what was meant to be a 
democratic republic, but it brings in, through the agency 


1 According to a Supreme Court ruling “ The theory of our government is, that all 
-ublic stations are trusts.”— 21 Wallace, 450. 



6 


THE CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM MOVEMENT. 


of what is known as the “ courtesy of the senate,” the 
spirit and proceedings of feudal times. To quote from 
a recent discussion of this point, in the Pt'inceton Re¬ 
view r 1 “Under the extension of the ‘courtesy’ to 
removals, it follows that, as to all those five hundred 
officers, 2 excepting at most the thirty-three serving at 
Washington, their removal really depends on the will of 
the senators of the state where these officials respect¬ 
ively serve.” “ The power and prestige of the executive 
are thus enfeebled and degraded in the estimation of his 
own subordinates in the same degree that senators are ex¬ 
alted and are tempted to become domineering patronage 
monopolists at Washington, and feudal purveyors of 
places and despots in partisan politics at home.” 3 

Again, no less must a government truly democratic be 
a government “by the people.” That form of govern¬ 
ment is oligarchic, rather than democratic, in which the 
control is concentrated in the hands of a few, to the 
exclusion of the body of the people. In this country 
political control is vested in the exercise of the suffrage. 
But such is the management of the office-holding body 
in some states that but a small portion of the citizens 
are admitted to the exercise of this right. A volume 
published in 1880, entitled “ The Independent move¬ 
ment in New York,” explains with much fulness the 
“ New York system of primaries.” They are “a series 
of permanent clubs or companies.” And the writer adds: 
“ They must have members enough to make a pretence 
of popular representation, but they must not be so numer¬ 
ous as to become unmanageable.” To show the extent 
to which this power is committed to a few men, con¬ 
sider, he says, that, “ in a city of a million, six thousand 
club men are sufficient.” 4 Mr. Dorman B. Eaton, also, 
in the article already referred to, 5 states other features: 
“Life-long adhesion to the Republican party, and un- 


1 Princeton Review, Sept., 18S1, p. 167. 

2 Referring to certain officers in the Treasury Department. 

s The reform of the civil service not only aims to remove the system of appoint- 
ments from politics, but to restore the appointing power, to the executive, as 
enjoined by the constitution. 

4 “ The Independent movement,” p. 168. 

5 Princeton Review , Sept., 1881, p. 159. 




THE REFORM IS NOT UNDEMOCRATIC. 


I 


broken support of its principles, do not even create a 
presumptive right to pass the doors of any one of these 
primaries; and until admitted to one of them no man is 
recognized as a member of the party, nor can he vote 
or be heard on any nomination of delegates.” In this 
system “the civil officials” are “the spoils-system 
generals, colonels, and captains .” 1 How demoralizing 
to true citizenship is any such substitution of personal rule 
for the support of the principles of a free government is 
obvious. Civil-service reform, as everywhere understood, 
means the utter divorce of official interference from the 
expression by the citizens of their choice of officers . 2 

Yet, conceding all that has been stated, the charge is 
sometimes made, that a system of official selection, pro¬ 
motion, and service will raise up an official class, or caste, 
out of sympathy with the people, and not responsible to 
them. In order that this should result, however, it 
would be necessary that the body of office-holders should 
control and dispense patronage ; should be drawn from a 
similar or uniform class of society; and be beyond fear 
of interference or removal for cause. But this reform 
provides for competitive examinations, open to all classes 
and localities and shades of opinion, and demanding only 
that the applicant be found fit for the place . 3 The tenure 
of office, again, is not beyond reach of necessary limita¬ 
tion ; but while securely removed from envious partisan¬ 
ship 4 it is at the same time distinctly subject to the proper 
discharge of duties. 

Those who see in this reform the bugbear of an aristo¬ 
cratic class should study the history of civil-service 
reform in Great Britain, where it had to meet at the 
outset the objection, not that it was “ not democratic,” 
but that it was “too democratic,” and would allow the 
“lower classes” to compete and enter the service; and 


1 Princeton Review , Sept., 1S81, p. 15S. 

2 See the Willis bill, “ To prevent extortion,” coercion, etc. 

3 As a level-headed daily paper (the Boston Herald ) has remarked, in comment¬ 
ing on this claim, “ One element in good behavior is courtesy to the public; and we 
do not fear that placing the service on merit would endanger our liberties.” 

4 One of the provisions of the Pendleton bill is “that no person in the public ser¬ 
vice is for that reason under any obligation to contribute to any political fund, or to 
render any political service, and that he will not be removed or otherwise prejudiced 
for refusing to do so.” (Sect. 2, rule 6.) 







8 


THE CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM MOVEMENT. 


where, as the result has proved, the service has been 
practically opened to men of any social rank whatever, 
provided they possess the real qualifications for the 
position. 

To quote Mr. Eaton once more: “ There is no more 

politics in a British custom-house than in a college, a 
regiment, or a church. Neither members of parliament, 
great officers, nor politicians have any patronage in con¬ 
nection with such offices. The son of a duke or a 
bishop, if he would gain an appointment over the son of 
a drayman or a stoker, must show himself the better 
man in open competition by his side.” 1 

III this country we know no rank or class distinction, 
•and, in this light, civil-service reform, we shall admit, is 
democratic. 

Another point yet remains to be considered. A recent 
writer on the subject 2 claims that in view of the fact 
that “ the public places are public property,” “ the active 
participation by the largest number of persons in the 
practical administration of their own government” is an 
“ object highly to be desired.” It is to be feared that this 
writer’s views are somewhat confused on this point. It 
is clear that by “practical administration” he means 
holding an office; and yet only one hundred thousand 
offices for fifty millions of people is a ludicrously small 
allowance, and not “ enough to go around.” He has not 
clearly apprehended the nature of our government. This 
is a representative republic, and it is by the exercise of 
the right of suffrage that each citizen makes his voice 
heard in its administration, rather than by holding an 
office . 3 

Lastly, it may be said that the system to be reformed 


1 See also Mr. Eaton’s M Civil service in Great Britain,” p. 259, 316. 

2 Lippincott's Magazine , Dec., 18S0, v. 26, p. 690-97. 

8 A New England journal (Providence journal ) remarks, that in too many 
instances “the American citizen is taught, from his youth up, that the possession 
of a public office is proof of the estimation, or, at any rate, will command the 
respect, of the people; that it is to be sought to be attained by a struggle com¬ 
mencing with the first effort in a debating society; that anybody may be President, 
and that all ought to strive to be somebody ‘ officially,’ ” and admonishes citizens of 
the wholesome “ fact that office is a trust which imposes responsibility, and reflects 
no credit upon any one who cannot properly fulfil its duties; that it is not to be 
scrambled for as the most essential thing in life, to be obtained at the sacrifice of 
the heart, the judgment, and the conscience.” 





THE REFORM IS NOT UNDEMOCRATIC. 


9 


is undemocratic because it discourages “the active par¬ 
ticipation by the largest number of persons,” not as 
this writer urges, “ in the practical administration of” 
the government, but in the act of suffrage itself, and 
the preliminary meetings for expressing choice of officers. 
Besides the instances already cited of involuntary dis¬ 
franchisement, there has been forming, during the last 
twenty-five years, an element in American citizenship 
which is, rightly or wrongly, withdrawing its partici¬ 
pation and influence from the politics of the country. 
Disgusted at the abuses and outrages of the partisan 
system, overborne and neutralized by the office-holding 
influence, they have subtracted their votes, and their 
interest 1 as well, from the country to which they belong. 
It is easy to say that they are blameworthy. Indeed, 
“the continued neglect of the caucus,” to quote from a 
recent address , 2 “ will work the ruin of the republic, for 
it means in the end the utter decay of all real interest 
in public affairs.” The proposed reform strikes at the 
root of these evils. It aims to introduce efficiency into 
administration, and to protect the exercise of each citizen’s 
fundamental right of suffrage from official manipulation 
and interference. 


1 Yet there are indications that the class of citizens most alienated by long - , 
continued abuses from active interest and participation in politics are seeing - their 
way clear to renewing their influence. There is much truth in the significant utterance 
of the late Professor Diman : “ It is in the indirect and slower process of appeal- 

ing to public opinion that the ultimate vindication of truth and justice is assured.” 
In this sense, he adds, the educated citizen “ is a spiritual power in the state that no 
factions can outwit, that no majorities can overwhelm.”—[“The alienation of the 
educated class from politics,” by J. L. Diman ($B K oration at Cambridge, June 29, 
1876), p. 26.] 

2 Address of Mr. A. Thayer, before the Massachusetts Club, Oct. 8, 1881. 






10 


THE CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM MOVEMENT'. 


CHAPTER II. 

IT IS NOT UNCONSTITUTIONAL. 

But the reform is objected to, not only on the ground that 
it is out of harmony with the spirit of our institutions, but 
with the letter also ; that it conflicts with the provisions 
of the constitution itself. Let us see, first, what the constitu¬ 
tion really provides. Next let us observe what is actually 
the case under the present system, and, afterwards, what the 
proposed reform requires. What does the constitution pro¬ 
vide? In Sect. 2, art. 2, it specifies that 44 he ” ( i.e ., the 
president) 44 shall nominate, and, by and with the advice 
and consent of the senate, shall appoint, ambassadors, other 
public ministers and consuls, judges of the supreme court, 
and all other officers of the United States, whose appoint¬ 
ments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall 
be established by law; but the congress may by law vest 
the appointment of such inferior officers as they think 
proper in the president alone, in the courts of law, or in the 
heads of departments.” 

What is the practice which has grown up under the 
partisan system of public service? Let answer be made in 
the forcible language of Gen. Garfield, in 1870, when a 
member of the house of representatives 1 : — 

44 We go” (i.e., the legislators), 44 man by man, to the 
heads of these several departments, and say: 4 Here is a 
friend of mine ; give him a place.’ We press such appoint¬ 
ments upon the departments; we crowd the doors; we fill 
the corridors ; senators and representatives throng the offices 
and bureaus until the public business is obstructed ; the 
patience of officers is worn out, and sometimes, for fear of 
losing their places by our influence, they at last give way, 
and appoint men, not because they are fit for their positions, 
but because we ask it.” 


1 Congressional Globe , March 14, 1870, p. 1940. 




IT IS NOT UNCONSTITUTIONAL. 


11 


What does the reform propose ? A recent party platform 
(that of the Massachusetts Republican Convention at Wor¬ 
cester, Sept. 21, 1881) has expressed this in very direct 
and intelligible form: “Maintenance of the constitutional 
prerogative of the 'president to make nominations upon 
his sole responsibility.” . .. . “ The relief and exclusion 

of the members of the legislative branch from the business 
of selecting office-holders” u for party purposes.” 

Which of the two conforms to the constitution? The 
answer is not difficult. When it comes to a question of 
means, certain details as to knowledge of candidates claim 
attention, and chiefly these three: How is the president 
to know? May not a senator or representative sometimes 
know? Can the president act through an examining board? 
All three are important questions, but only the first and 
third will be discussed at this point, from the fact of their 
legal and constitutional bearing. The other will be con¬ 
sidered under another heading. 

It is perfectly obvious that, in order to act intelligently, the 
president must seek for information of some one. Can he 
act as he is enjoined by the constitution, and yet accept the 
reports as to qualifications, etc., which reach him through 
an examining board? 

This question was in due time submitted to the attorney- 
general of the United States (at that time Mr. Akerman), 
in connection with the provisions of section 1753 of the 
. “ Revised Statutes of the United States,” which had become 
law in 1871. 1 Mr. Akerman, on the 31st of August, iS^, 
rendered an opinion as follows : The “ question proposed<Cy 
the commissioners is this: 4 May the president, under 
the act by which the board 2 is organized, regulate the 
exercise of the appointing power now vested in the heads of 
departments or in the courts of law so as to restrict appoint¬ 
ments to a class of persons whose qualifications or fitness 
shall have been determined by an examination instituted in- 

1 This section is as follows : “ The president is authorized to prescribe such reg¬ 
ulations for the admission of persons into the civil service of the United States as 
may best promote the efficiency thereof, and ascertain the fitness of each candidate 
in respect to age, health, character, knowledge, and ability for the branch of service 
into which he seeks to enter; and for this purpose he may employ suitable persons 
to conduct such inquiries, and may prescribe their duties, and establish regulations 
for the conduct of persons who may receive appointment in*the civil service.” 

2 /. e., the “ Civil-service commission.” 






12 


THE CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM MOVEMENT. 


dependent of the appointing power? ’ My opinion is that he 
may.” 1 And in this connection he cites the opinion delivered 
by a previous Attorney-General. (Mr. Legate, in “ Official 
opinions of the Attorneys-General,” v. 4, p. 164.) As 
expressed, therefore, in the Report of the Civil-Service Com¬ 
mission, the next year, 2 it appears u that both the theory of 
the constitution and its recognized interpretation, allowed 
the direct exercise of choice by the appointing power to be 
limited to a few of the worthier applicants ; the less worthy 
having been first ascertained and eliminated by a just 
method, authorized by law and fairly exercised under its 
sanctions.” 3 4 Not only was the principle here recognized 
embodied in the legislation of 1871, 4 but with no less care in 
the bill now before congress. 

The reform, therefore, not only in its general principle, 
but as regards this specific feature of examinations, rests on 
a constitutional basis, as repeatedly affirmed by the govern¬ 
ment’s chief legal advisers. 


1 “ Official opinions of the attorneys-general of the United States,” v. 13, p. 524. 

2 Dated April 15, 1S74. 

3 See p. 20 of the “ Report of the Civil-Service Commission,” April 15, 1S74. It 
should be added that in this report the whole question of constitutionality is exam¬ 
ined with much detail. (See p. 19, 20, 23, 61-63.) Also by Mr. Eaton in his letter to 
the Springfield Republican , dated Oct. 10, iS8i,.when he says: — 

“ The language of the bill is not * appoint a chief examiner,’ but ‘ employ a chief 
examiner.’ Now, from the foundation of the government there has been this dis¬ 
tinction : that when officials have had business details to attend to — like a committee 
of congress needing a clerk, for example — they have been allowed to ‘employ’ such 
persons as they may approve, within the limits of an appropriation. So broad is the 
rule that, from the beginning to this day,—when there are more than 42,000 post- 
offices,— every clerk and subordinate in either of them, including the assistant post¬ 
masters, have been employed and dismissed by the postmasters at their discretion, 
without the approval of other officials; such being the fact even in regard to the 
thousand clerks in the New York office, and the assistant postmaster there, who may 
be left in sole charge of that vast office. When the postmaster at Boston or Pittsfield 
is thus allowed to employ and dismiss, at his pleasure, all those who serve under 
him, may not five civil-service commissioners be allowed to employ one examiner 
without violating the constitution ? ” 

4 Section 1754 of the “Revised statutes,” also relating to the same point, but 
stating the preference to be given to honorably discharged soldiers, has also been 
reaffirmed in an opinion delivered this year by Attorney-General MacVeagh : — 

“An ex-Union soldier applied for a position in the New York Custom House. 
He was informed that he must first pass the prescribed civil-service examination 
before he would be eligible to the appointment he desired. He appealed to the 
secretary of the treasury, claiming the right of precedence over those who had 
passed the examination referred to under the act giving preference in appointments 
to positions in the treasury department to ex-soldiers and sailors of the war of the 
rebellion. Secretary Windom referred the matter to the attorney-general, with a re¬ 
quest for an opinion upon the legal question involved. Attorney-General MacVeagh 
replied that the preference conferred by the statute upon an ex-soldier or sailor is 
over those who, with himself, have passed the civil-service examination. Passing 
the prescribed examination is an indispensable condition precedent to appointment 
in the civil service.”— Boston Herald , Aug. 21, 1SS1. 




IT IS NOT IMPRACTICABLE. 


13 


CHAPTER III. 

IT IS NOT IMPRACTICABLE. 

Closely allied with the point just considered is that sug¬ 
gested by the questions, Is not this an impossible theory ? Is 
the idea a practical one ? Is the scheme practicable ? There 
is no better way to answer questions like these than to show 
what has been done. In this light we are able to answer 
that the reform is essentially a practicable one. Ten years 
ago, indeed, we might point to what had been the experience 
in Great Britain since 1855. Yet, since it might be urged 
that two countries differing so widely in social and national 
characteristics cannot furnish analogies for each other, an 
American experience was desirable. This, also, we have 
had. Without goingback to the distinguished career of Mr. 
Bristow, as secretary of the treasury from 1874 to 1876, 
during which great administrative reforms were accom¬ 
plished, it wdll be well to consider in detail those that have 
followed. 

In 1876 a writer in the North Ainerican Review said, 
respecting the reasonable hope that Mr. Schurz might be 
called to a place in the cabinet in case of Mr. Hayes’s election, 
that “ He more than any other man in the country personifies 
that which they” (i.e., independent voters, including friends 
of civil-service reform) u wish to see introduced into politics ; 
that he is the spear-head to which they are but a shaft.” 1 2 
Mr. Schurz did become a member of President Hayes’s 
cabinet, and retained his seat throughout the presidential 
term of four years. He was the first to demonstrate, by 
actual administration, that an entire government department 
may be conducted on these very principles. What he accom¬ 
plished might appropriately be described in the very language 
used in 1869 by Gen. Cox, then at the head of this very sam e 
department, in stating his ideal of administration. 2 u To 


1 North American Review , Oct. 1876, v. 123, p. 467. 

2 “ Annual report of the secretary of the interior, for the year 1869,” p. xxiv. 






14 


THE CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM MOVEMENT. 


raise the standard of qualification, make merit, as tested 
by the duty performed, the sole ground of promotion, 
and secure to the faithful incumbent the same perma¬ 
nence of employment that is given to officers of the army 
and navy; ” with this exception, that the civil-service 
reform measure now advocated does not insist on a per¬ 
manent tenure of office. The chief features of his service to 
the country are given in detail in an article in the Inter¬ 
national Review} We have space to quote from it only the 
following: “ The results of Mr. Schurz’s administration are 
of almost inestimable value to the country.” “ The country 
has been given an opportunity to study a civil-service re¬ 
former as an executive officer. It has seen him reaching 
practical results for the attainment of which his predecessors 
made no effort. He has left his department in better condi¬ 
tion than it was ever in before ; he has adopted methods for 
transacting the public business more perfect than were ever 
dreamed of by any business man who ever filled the office ” 

(P- 393 )- 

Again, if a demonstration of a different kind were needed, 
we have it in the experience of the two great local sub-offices, 
the New York Custom House and the New York Post 
Office. A public service has been done by the issue in 
pamphlet form of the history of the abuses to be reformed, 
the ineffectual efforts to abate them, and the successful ac¬ 
complishment of this result in both offices, under the late 
collector, Mr. Merritt, and the late postmaster, Mr. James. 1 2 

This pamphlet was prepared by request of Mr. Hayes 
(then president), in view of the fact that “the civil-service 
rules requiring open competitive examinations for appoint¬ 
ments and promotions in the post office, the custom house, 
the surveyor’s office, and the naval office, at the city of New 
York, have now, I think, been tested long enough to dis¬ 
close their tendency and to enable an opinion of some value 
to be formed as to the probable effects of the permanent en¬ 
forcement of such public tests of merit.” To this pamphlet 


1 “ Schurz’s administration of the interior department,” by Henry L. Nelson, 
International Review , April, 1881, v. io, pp. 380-396. 

2 “ The * spoils’ system and civil-service reform in the custom-house and post-office 
at New York,” by Dorman B. Eaton. [Publications of the N. Y. Civil-service Reform 
Association, No. 3.I This valuable document is frequently cited in these pages, 
under the name of lf Mr. Eaton’s pamphlet.” 





IT IS NOT IMPRACTICABLE. 


15 


are appended an abstract of the civil-service rules for the 
custom house, and specimens of subjects of examinations. 

In 1870 Mr. Thomas Murphy was collector of the port of 
New York, and in the course of the congressional investiga¬ 
tion of that office, conducted in the spring of 1872, testified 
in a somewhat grimly amusing manner as follows : — 

- Speaking of an officer who had been in the custom-house 
over thirty years, Mr. Murphy remarked that he was u a 
great relief to and a great comfort to any collector.” 

Question. To have a man of such experience and good 
character? 

Answer. To have such a man of experience. 

Q. Kept there steadily attending to public business ? 

A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Is he not allowed to enjoy his own opinions in regard 
to political matters ? 

A. He is, sir ; Mr. Clinch is. 

Q. And he attends to his duties and does that publicly, 
and is permitted to remain ? 

A. Yes, sir. 

Q. No matter what may be the ebb or flow of party? 

A. That is so, sir. 

Q. And the result is that the collector has, as you say, a 
great comfort in this officer? 

A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Who is permitted to serve the public and yet main¬ 
tain his personal independence? 

A. Yes, sir. He is an exception to the general 
rule though - 1 

This is the same collector whose idea of the custom house 
was “ a machine to be run in the interest of the party.” 
And yet this is a custom house whose business exceeds that 
of any other in the world, requiring the collection of more 
than $480,000 every day of the year except Sundays. In 
1879 the open competitive examinations went into effect 
under Collector Merritt, together with the entirely new order 
of things which an intelligent public sentiment would de¬ 
mand. Some of the facts, as given in Mr. Eaton’s pamphlet 


i“Testimony in relation to alleged frauds in the New York Custom-House” 
(1S72), v. 3, p. 406. 










16 


THE CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM MOVEMENT. 


already cited, are significant. In 1880 the revenue collected 
was more than one-third greater than that of 1877* with a 
force smaller than in that year. At the same time the 
cost of collection had increased only one-eighth. (Mr. Eaton’s 
pamphlet, p. 62-63.) Mr. Murphy’s term of office lasted 
eighteen months, during which he made three hundred and 
thirty-eight removals, or three every five days. (Mr. Eaton’s 
pamphlet, p. 23.) Mr. Eaton, writing in February of the 
present year, 1 states that during the eighteen months of 
Mr. Merritt’s collectorship then completed, onl} T forty-four 
removals had been made, and each of them for cause. 

(p- 630 

The statistics in connection with the competitive examin¬ 
ations are interesting, as disproving some familiar objections 
to the system. “.It was not generally boys or young persons 
fresh from their studies who competed, but men ; — the aver¬ 
age age of the first four hundred competitors being thirty- 
seven years, (p. 67.) And to conclude, let us listen to the 
testimony of the merchants themselves. The New York 
Chamber of Commerce, in June, voted : — 

“That, in the judgment of this chamber, the system of examina¬ 
tion for appointment to places in the custom house which has ruled 
during the last few years has been of substantial value to the mer¬ 
cantile community, and is, in their eyes, of great importance. 

“ Resolved , That the interest of all doing business with the 
custom house demands the continuance and extension of the same 
system, as one which has resulted in more prompt and intelligent 
attention to the business both of the government and the merchant.” 2 

In July of the present year Mr. Merritt retired from the 
position of collector with distinguished honor. In his final 
report he says : — 

“I am of opinion that applying the simple test of efficiency and 
character, as compared with appointments heretofore made, it may 
be declared a complete success. While it is possible for the nomi¬ 
nating officer, if unembarrassed by political considerations, to select 
competent and trustworthy men (and with the desire to do so he 


1 In February of the present year Mr. Merritt made a special report to the 
secretary of the treasury, in consequence of a request for information made by the 
senate, from which, among other points, it appeared that a reduction of 33 per cent, 
had been made in the cost of collecting, as compared with the expense under his 
predecessor. [Executive document no. 61, 46th congress, 3d session, p. 4.] 

2 Resolutions of the New York Chamber of Commerce, at its monthly meeting 
June 2, 1SS1. 




IT IS NOT IMPRACTICABLE, 


17 


would still be open to the charge of favoritism), it is practically im¬ 
possible to become sufficiently acquainted with applicants at the 
outset to determine as to the wisdom of their appointment. The 
present rules have at least one merit, — that the tests, whether the 
best that can be devised or not, are fair, and absolutely impartial. 
Rules, however, to have the fullest measure of respect should apply 
to all branches of the civil service under similar conditions. Per¬ 
manency of tenure is an important consideration, if the employ^ is 
of proved competency and trustworthiness.” 

His successor, Mr. Robertson, in some remarks made to 
a committee of the New York Chamber of Commerce, a 
few days after assuming control, said : — 

“I shall continue to pursue the policy adopted by my predecessor 
in making appointments to the customs service. The usual com¬ 
petitive examinations will be held. My predecessor bequeathed me 
a legacy of names of candidates for examination and appointment 
which will last for a long time .” 1 

Nor is the experience in the New York Post Office of less 
interest. The need of efficient and intelligent administration 
was no less urgent. When Mr. James was appointed post¬ 
master, in 1S73, “Hundreds of long-neglected hags of mail 
were found scattered or piled in various parts of the post- 
office.” “For policemen to bring in drunken carriers, to 
empty their pockets of mail before taking them to station- 
houses, was among the incidents of post-office experience at 
New York.” These details sound more like the brilliant 
absurdities of opera bouffe than plain narration of fact; but 
they are stated on good authority. (Mr. Eaton’s pamphlet, 
p. 71.) “ Those in the postal service,” he adds, “were 

nearly all active partisans and henchmen of great poltiicians.” 
Fortunately Mr. James was one of the comparatively few 
men who have a native talent for organization and adminis- 


1 In the letter of President Hayes to Mr. Eaton, Dec. 3, 1SS0, calling- for a 
report on the observance of the civil-service rules, he stated that, besides describing 
their operation in New York, it would be well to notice also “the more recent and 
less complete experiments in the direction of enforcing those rules at Boston and 
Philadelphia.” Although, in the limited time at his disposal, Mr. Eaton was pre¬ 
vented from giving his attention to the offices at either of the two latter places, 
Collector Beard, of the Boston custom-house, has published in the Bostoti Journal 
of August 6, 1881, a statement of the work of his office during 1880. He states “ that 
the appointments have nearly all been to the minor grades of the service. The pro¬ 
motions have been because of merit as exhibited in competitive service, and upon 
the recommendations of superior officers. . . . The collector is responsible for 

the efficiency and good conduct of his office, and believes that removals should only 
be made for sufficient cause, and appointments to the customs service should be made 
on business principles.” 









18 


THE CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM MOVEMENT. 


tration. Few phenomena are so interesting as the' process, 
alluded to on another page, by which, without any civil- 
service rules to begin with, a true civil-service reform was 
developed in this office almost in the order of nature, — a 
striking testimony to the firm basis of truth and common- 
sense underlying it. 

u He thought,” says Mr. Eaton, “he could best serve his 
country and his party by thoroughly performing his duty as 
postmaster.” A writer in Scribner* s, in 1878, remarked : — 

“Under Mr. James’s administration a system of genuine civil 
service has grown up. He has steadily resisted the demands of 
politicians that good clerks shall be removed on account of their 
lack of efficiency in ward politics. It is said to be a beautiful sight 
to see him send for a superintendent and ask what kind of a man 
the clerk is, in the presence of the ‘ statesmen ’ of the assembly 
district who are urging his removal. A good report from the 
superintendent, and a polite ‘You see, gentlemen, that it is impos¬ 
sible to remove him,’ ends it.”— (“The New York Post Office,” by 
Edward Eggleston, Scribner's, May, 1878, v. 16, p. 76.) 

Mr. James found the pass-examinations which he at first 
established “ not calculated to meet the growing require¬ 
ments of the situation,” as he himself states in a letter to Mr. 
Eaton (Mr. Eaton’s pamphlet, p. 73) ; and accordingly, 
after consultation with other officers of the government, de¬ 
cided to cooperate with President Hayes in establishing open 
competitive examinations at the New York Post Office. 
After six months’ trial, he stated in his report to the presi¬ 
dent, Nov. 8, 1879, “ I have no hesitation in saying that the 
results have been salutary in a marked degree, and that, 
from my experience so far, I am satisfied that the general 
application of similar rules could not fail to be of decided 
benefit to the service.” (Mr. Eaton’s pamphlet, p. 74.) 
The statistics of this office also are instructive. The cost of 
administration is less by $20,000 than five years ago, yet 
the business of the office has increased fully one-third during 
that time. 

“It is not merely that mails a third larger and more numerous 
have been handled at less cost, but collections and deliveries have 
been made more frequent and certain. As against five daily deliveries 
under his predecessor, Mr. James now makes seven; and where 
there were only ten collections below Canal street there are now 
nineteen. Nor is this the most important; an office so lately 



IT IS NOT IMPRACTICABLE. 


19 


disreputable for its scandals, inefficiency, and corruption has become 
the pride of those who serve it, and an honor to republican adminis¬ 
tration throughout the Union. ... It has become the model 
post-office of the country, and imparted a higher ambition to every 
worthy postmaster.” 

“ It has won such strength with the community that a senate, 
which had not voted a dollar in aid of the reform through which 
such results have been possible, has twice hastened to confirm Mr. 
James without a dissenting vote. And yet there are thousands of 
partisans, zealous for the party to which the postmaster belongs, — 
to say nothing of other thousands too ignorant or prejudiced to form 
any judgment on the matter,—who affect to sneer at the very 
methods through which such results have been possible. Just as, 
ten years ago, they thought the postal service of the city as 
good as it need be, they now think it the most complete in the 
world; when, in fact, it is yet behind that of London and other 
English cities, where the standard is higher, the competitive 
methods have been much longer in practice, and appropriations are 
more adequate. The daily deliveries in London, for example, are 
twelve in some parts and eleven in other parts as against seven in 
the most favored portion of New York.” 1 

And yet a writer, who seems very much in earnest, has 
mentioned, as one of his objections to civil-service re¬ 
form, “the claim that ‘ the business of the government should 
be done on business principles.’ This is generally understood 
to mean obtaining the most work for the least money.” 
And, after expressing his disapproval of this claim, he passes 
on to mention what he considers would “ more probably 
secure an efficient service.” 2 But this is a free country, 
where every man is entitled to his own opinion, however 
peculiar. 

Nor is this the extent of our experience in the practical 
working of the principle. The accession of Gen. Garfield 
to the presidency in March of the present year was made 
the occasion of the transfer of Mr. James, who, as we have 
seen, had become thoroughly identified with the reformed 
administration of the New York Post Office, to a position 
in the national cabinet, as postmaster-general of the United 
States. It is safe to say that few cabinet appointments 
were ever so heartily and universally endorsed by the 
public sentiment of the country. The circumstance, also, 
is not without its significance as marking a distinct advance 


1 Mr. Eaton’s pamphlet, p. 75-76. 

2 North American Review , April, 18S1, v. 132, pp. 314, 319. 








20 


THE CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM MOVEMENT. 


in national ideas of administration. Cabinet officers have 
frequently been selected heretofore on the ground of being 
distinguished men, able legislators, far-seeing statesmen, or 
sagacious diplomatists, but never before on the ground of 
conspicuously competent administration, as in this instance. 
Even the selection of Mr. Schurz as a member of Mr. 
Hayes’s cabinet, which proved in the end to have secured 
an exceptionally able administrator, was made before he had 
actually had experience in similar service. The expecta¬ 
tions which Mr. James’s appointment encouraged have not 
been disappointed, and his administration has been a signal 
example, not less striking than that of Mr. Schurz, of what 
a department may be made under the rule of intelligent 
principles. A saving of nearly seven hundred and fifty 
thousand dollars was made within the first three months, in 
the Star route and steamboat mail service, and with the 
energetic and determined measures which have since then 
been pushed, for the summary abatement of the Star route 
abuses, the public is happily familiar. 

As would naturally be supposed, the experience of Mr. 
James with competitive examinations in the New York Post 
Office has led him to believe them practicable in the Post- 
office Department, and accordingly we find him stating, a few 
months ago, that he has “been considering two schemes to 
reform the ” service. The tragic event which has since then 
occupied the minds and attention of all has delayed their 
execution, but, should he continue to fill this position, their 
ultimate adoption is reasonably certain. 

That some of the other departments of the government 
have not before this set in operation the same system is due 
to the national calamity just referred to. Secretary Windom, 
beginning with no intimate acquaintance with civil-service 
reform, has passed through some such an experience as Mr. 
James in the New York Post Office. The overwhelming 
pressure of office-seekers, fitly compared by Mr. Curtis, in 
his Saratoga address, to Niagara, has, by sheer force of 
circumstances, made him a “ civil-service reformer.” Said 
Mr. Curtis, in answering the question why the fittest ap¬ 
pointments are not now made by officers of the government, 
without the interposition of civil-service reform methods: — 



IT IS NOT IMPRACTICABLE. 


21 


“ For the same reason that a leaf goes over Niagara. It is because 
the opposing forces are overpowering.” A high officer of the gov¬ 
ernment “ said to me, as we drove upon the heights of Washington : 

‘ Do you mean that I ought not to appoint my subordinates, for 
whom I am responsible?’ I answered: ‘I me?ln that you do not 
appoint them now; I mean that if, when we return to the capital, 
you hear that your chief subordinate is dead, you will not appoint 
his successor. You will have to choose among the men urged 
upon you by certain powerful politicians. Undoubtedly you ought 
to appoint the man whom you believe to be the most fit. But you 
do not and cannot. If you could or did appoint such men only, 
and that were the rule of your department and of the service, there 
would be no need of reform.’ And he could not deny it. There 
was no law to prevent his selection of the best man. Indeed, the 
law assumed that he would do it. The constitution intended that 
he should do it. But when I reminded him that there were forces 
beyond the law that paralyzed the intention of the constitution, 
and which would inevitably compel him to accept the choice of 
others, he said no more.” 1 

•Much the same experience convinced Mr. Windom, 
at the end of three or four months, of the necessity of such 
provision. He ordered that “ all information obtainable, 
concerning such rules and regulations in the departments, 
be prepared and laid before him.” An experienced observer 
wrote from Washington, in July, respecting this: “ Those 
of his subordinates, on whom this duty was laid, were very 
glad to give him all the assistance in their power. • As soon 
as anything can be done, I think we shall generally have 
rules like ” (those of the New York and Boston custom¬ 
houses) “ introduced and applied to all the custom-house 
appointments, and, probably, also to the treasury department 
itself.” 2 

“ When the president gets at work on a civil-service 
scheme,” said this correspondent, he will not have any 
more earnest helper than Secretary Windom, who may now 
be ranked on the side of good government in all its aspects.” 
The remarks of a newspaper correspondent are not to be 
received as official declarations, of course ; but are here in¬ 
troduced as representing the cordial approval of the public 
at large, the press, and government officials, which such 


1 Address of George William Curtis, before the American Social Science Associ¬ 
ation, at Saratoga, Sept. 8, 1881. 

2 “ E. H.,” in the Boston Sunday Herald , of July 17, 1881. 





22 


THE CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM MOVEMENT. 


movements commanded. But Secretary Windom is himself 
on record on this point, and his own words are worthy of 
attention: — 

“I am a good deal more of a civil-service reformer than when I 
entered the secretaryship of the Treasury, three months and a half 
ago. In the last one hundred days a few thousand men in search 
of office have taken nine-tenths of the time of the president and his 
cabinet advisers. This time is due to the fifty millions of people 
rather than to the office-seekers.” 1 

The death of the president, with the consequent with¬ 
drawal of Secretary Windom, has, it is true, interfered with 
the sequence of these plans; but they are none the less in¬ 
teresting as marking the rise of the reform sentiment. In 
the War Department “ the fact that so many of the officers 
are imbued with the spirit of military education and training 
has excluded the spirit and many of the evils of partisan 
intrigue.” 2 In the Navy Department, regulations to gover-n 
the appointment of civil engineers on civil-service reform 
principles have been adopted. The admirable and fearless 
administration of the department of justice, under Attorney- 
General MacVeagh, is what might reasonably have been 
expected of that officer, who had, before his accession to 
the cabinet, an outspoken record on civil-service reform. 
As has very truly been remarked : — 

“Taken in connection with the appointment of Postmaster-Gen¬ 
eral James, the most conspicuous representative in the country of 
civil-service reform reduced to practice, Mr. MacVeagh’s presence 
in the cabinet was one of the most promising signs of the times.” 

In the State Department the principle of civil-service 
reform has, as is well known, long been a recognized 
feature. An order of the president, dated March 14, 
1873, provided for u examinations upon subjects relative to 
the official service required, stated in writing.” Among 
other subjects included are international law and the regula¬ 
tions for the consular service of the United States. 3 

One conspicuous exception to these instances will at once 
occur to the reader, in the Department of the Interior, under 


1 Address at Long Branch, June 23, 1S81. 

2 See “ Civil-Service Commission report,” April 15, 1874, P* 45 - 

3 Same report, p. 39. 





IT IS NOT IMPRACTICABLE. 


23 


Secretary Schurz’s successor. More extended reference will, 
however, be made to this later on . 1 

It is no slight consideration in favor of the practical nature 
of the reform, that it has been subject to twelve years’ careful 
study, discussion, trial, and criticism. It is by such a pro¬ 
cess as this that w r e come to possess a knowledge of its 
actual capabilities and limitations. It is through such a pro¬ 
cess as this that the specific plan of legislation, now before 
congress, has been developed and shaped. 


J- See Chapter 6, p. 39. 




24 


THE CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM MOVEMENT. 


CHAPTER IV. 

IT IS NOT UNBUSINESS-LIKE. 

Many who are favorably inclined to civil-service reform, 
but “doubtful of the practical success of the measures pro¬ 
posed,” have questioned this; and in such a way as to lead 
one to believe “ that in their minds it is an objection of great 
weight.” This is formidable until we remember that if civil- 
service reform means anything, it distinctly means this very 
thing, the conducting of the government on business princi¬ 
ples. Let us see: in a successfully managed mercantile 
house a clerk or salesman is selected with direct reference 
to his possessing qualifications suited to his special duties, 
and not from his holding certain religious or political views. 
Just this is true of the reformed civil-service . 1 Is it of the 
present spoils system? In a well-conducted business estab¬ 
lishment a clerk whose long experience has made him in¬ 
creasingly efficient is not rotated out of office to give some 
one else a chance, but retained indefinitely during good 
behavior. True again of the reformed service, but just the 
opposite of the truth in the spoils system . 2 Again, in a busi¬ 
ness establishment such as has been supposed merit is recog¬ 
nized, and, as a consequence, stimulated and cultivated.. The 
employe nearest the foot of the ladder feels that should a 
vacancy occur he is in the direct line of promotion, and, if 
found efficient, is sure to rise. This suggests another effective 
contrast. 

But are competitive examinations a feature of ordinary 
business establishments ? In the earlier years of the reform 
the champions of the present system were accustomed to be¬ 
come very merry over this feature, and one well-known poli¬ 
tician, formerly a member of the senate, expressed himself 
very strongly in disapproval of the fine-spun theories of “ them 

1 See Pendleton bill, sect. 2, rule 6. 

2 See the resolution embodying this idea, passed at a meeting of the Providence 
Board of Trade, Sept. 24, 1881. 




IT IS NOT UNBUSINESS-LIKE. 


25 


literary fellers.” But the public at large has learned, long 
before this, that the principle of competitive examinations 
rests on no fanciful theory, but on sound experience. This is 
perhaps best seen in the case of the New York Post Office, 
which for several years, under the skilful administration of 
Mr. James, now postmaster-general, has become almost a 
synonym for excellent service. Mr. James, to use the lan¬ 
guage of a recent government report, 44 saw in the first place 
that it would not do to let everybody in for whom a place was 
applied by some man of prominence or influence.” 44 He set 
his foot down in the beginning, so far as this, that no person 
should be admitted to a place in the post-office ” 44 without a 
preliminary examination .” 1 He found that the preliminary 
examination” 44 did not remedy the evil; that, in the first 
place, as great pressure was brought to bear upon him in 
regard to selecting the persons who should submit to exam¬ 
ination ; and, in the next place, he found it very hard, with¬ 
out the spur of competition, to make the examinations 
thorough. So he has adopted the system of competitive ex¬ 
aminations.” 2 

Again, there has been disapproval expressed at the alleged 
literary nature of such an examination. Of what service will it 
be to a man who is to weigh sugar to be able to read the Greek 
drama in the original, or to one who superintends the mail 
service in a large city to have his mind stored with the 
various grades and qualities of sugar ? 3 Of what service 
indeed? But if the objector had inquired, he would have 
found that his apprehensions were groundless. No such 
absurdities are committed. In fact, the competitive exami¬ 
nations are based on a principle of the highest importance 
in practical business, — the direct adaptation of means to 
ends . 4 

] “ The system,” says Mr. James, “ has worked so well that it would now be im¬ 
possible to discontinue it.”— Civil Service Record , No. 5, Sept. 19, 1881. See also 
pp. 16 of this pamphlet. 

2 Senate report, no. 872, 46th congress, 3d session; appendix, p. 35. 

3 “There are certain kinds of information which every official needs : how to read, 
to write, to apply the elements of arithmetic. As we rise in the grades of the service 
technical or official information becomes indispensable. This may be peculiar to an 
office, as in the mint, the assay office, the postal service, the custom house.” (Mr. 
Eaton’s pamphlet, p. 55-56.) 

4 The Boston Advertiser of Sept. 17, 1S81, pointedly says: “There is nothing 
more preposterous than this attempt to make out that the issue is a question of 
‘business qualifications’ versus competitive examinations. There is not a person 
who has given enough investigation either to what is known as the spoils system, or 





26 


THE CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM MOVEMENT. 


It is instructive to notice that this feature of competitive 
examinations was, when first introduced in England, as much 
of a bugbear as in this country. Mr. Eaton, in his volume, 
41 Civil Service in Great Britain” (p. 198-99), states that, 
“by some the new system was opposed on the ground that the 
standard of examinations would be fixed so high that none 
but learned pedants and college-bred aristocrats could gain 
admission ; and by others it was opposed for exactly the 
opposite, that it would be fixed so low that gentlemen 
would be overslaughed by a band of conceited, impractica¬ 
ble school-masters and book-worms.” 44 Ridicule,” how¬ 
ever, he states (p. 211), “was soon turned against those 
who had laughed.” Statistics are preserved showing the 
details of these examinations, and Mr. Eaton adds (p. 225), 
“ as further showing in what small ratio merely literary (or 
not directly practical) knowledge excludes those rejected,” 
“ the report for 1867 shows that of 818 rejections in that 
year (from the 3,038 examined) 805 were made by reason 
of deficiency in knowledge of 4 subjects connected with the 
practical work of the office,’ or of ignorance in the matters 
of 4 reading, spelling, arithmetic, and handwriting.’ ” 

The adoption of competitive examinations in England 


to the proposed reform, who does not know that business qualifications are among 
the last things considered, when they are considered at all, under that system. A 
man is neither appointed in the first place, nor kept in the service after Ins appoint¬ 
ment, on account of his business qualifications, unless, indeed, these people under¬ 
stand by business qualifications the knack of making a speech, packing a caucus, 
or carrying elections by arts which do not bear close inspection.” 

It is noteworthy that in the New York post-office “there are competitions and 
drilling in mechanical expertness in the making up, distribution, and stamping of 
mails, to which the community is much indebted for the promptness of their recep¬ 
tion.” (Mr. Eaton’s pamphlet, p. 74.) 

An article in Scribner’s Monthly, May, 187S, gives farther details : “ For instance, 
the clerks who are distributing matter in the mailing department were recently re¬ 
quired to place correctly 2,200 cards, containing the names of all the post-offices in 
Ohio, in a series of pigeon-holes, labelled with the names of all the counties in that 
state. One man succeeded in making the distribution in two hours and twenty 
minutes, with only thirteen errors. The best man at the New York table was yet 
more remarkable. He put the whole 2S40 into their proper counties in one hundred 
and five minutes, with but a single error.” “In the delivery department, the box 
assorters, whose wonderful memory of twenty thousand names I have described ” 
(elsewhere in the article), “ are tested by the distribution of cards containing 2,000 
names of persons and firms holding boxes. A little over a year ago, when these 
examinations were begun, the highest man on the list receivecl a mark of ninety for 
correctness, while the lowest ran down to sixty. At the last trial (1S78) seven were 
marked over ninety-nine per cent, for correctness. The swiftest assorted the whole ” 
“ in forty-five minutes; the slowest—a new man perhaps — was more than four times 
as long. But the very lowest of the whole twenty-nine received sixty-seven as the 
percentage of correctness and expertness. Sueh is the improvement wrought by 
the stimulus of emulation.” — (“ The New York Post Office,” by Edward Eggleston, 
Scribner’s , v. 16, p. 77-78.) 





IT IS NOT UNBUSINESS-LIKE. 


27 


appears to have been, to some extent, a matter of theoretical 
political administration. The beauty of its actual introduc¬ 
tion in this country as a working measure, on the other 
hand, consists in the fact that it was, to a large extent, a 
perfectly natural development from the existing conditions. 
Neither Mr. James, in the New York Post Office, nor Mr. 
Windom, in the Treasury Department, wanted these examina¬ 
tions. Step by step they advanced to a consideration of their 
value, and, in Mr. James’s case, to actual trial, verification, 
and complete endorsement. In fact, the testimony to the 
value of this one feature of examinations, from the busi¬ 
ness element of the country, is very striking, and may well 
be considered to outweigh the criticisms that the system is 
unbusiness-like, made by others. Let us hear what the gen¬ 
tleman who has now succeeded to the presidency had to 
say of them, when acting as collector at the New York cus¬ 
tom-house ; and no one, we think, will consider the collector 
of that day as especially prejudiced in favor of civil-service 
reform, to say the least. He remarked, in a report to the 
president: 1 — 

“ No one in any degree acquainted with the necessities of the cus¬ 
toms service can doubt the propriety of some kind of an examina¬ 
tion for admission to it. This obvious necessity has, for many 
years, been recognized by requiring an examination; but it had, 
prior to the introduction of the new rules, become, in a great meas¬ 
ure, formal and perfunctory. There can be no doubt that the in¬ 
creased strictness required by the new system has, in this respect, 
been beneficial.” 

His successor, Mr. Merritt, who, while entering upon his 
duties with some misgivings as to these provisions, has gone 
the farthest in enforcing them, says of them that they 
have, in large measure, served the purpose intended. 
Mr. James, who, as we have seen, was almost driven 
to the competitive examinations, in his report to President 
Hayes, Nov. 8, 1879, declares: “I have no hesitation 
in saying .that the results have been salutary in a marked 
degree, and that, from my experience so far, I am satisfied 
that the general application of similar rules could not fail 
to be of decided benefit to the service.” (Mr. Eaton’s 


1 Quoted in “Civil-Service Commission Report,” Apr. 15, 1874, p. 53. 





28 


THE CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM MOVEMENT. 


pamphlet, p. 74. )* It is also of importance to know how 
these measures were regarded by the constituency of these 
officers, the great business community of New York city. 
Mr. Merritt says, in a report to President Hayes, in No¬ 
vember, 1S79 : “ The examinations have been attended by 
many citizens, who had an opportunity to thoroughly in¬ 
vestigate the scope and character of the tests and the methods 
of determining the results, and those visitors have, without 
exception, approved the methods employed, and several of 
them have publicly attested their favorable opinion.” 1 2 

The New York Chamber of Commerce resolved, June 2, 
1SS1, that “The system of competitive examination has 
been of substantial value to the mercantile community, and 
is, in their eyes, of great importance.” On the acceptance 
by Mr. James of the'position of postmaster-general his 
position as postmaster of New York was filled bv the 
appointment of his assistant postmaster, Mr. Pearson. 3 In 
this connection it is stated very significantly : “ The demand 
in this city for his appointment was spontaneous, decisive, and 
general beyond all precedent. It was irrespective of all party 
lines.” “Never before did public opinion in New York 
designate a postmaster. Now it has dictated his appoint¬ 
ment.” “ His name was little known to the public. But 
this they knew, that Mr. Pearson had helped to take the 
post-office out of partisan politics ; that he had been identified 
with the examinations which had brought in worthy clerks.” 
(Mr. Eaton’s pamphlet, p. 103.) 

Again, every merchant or business man knows that while 
an examination is useful so far as it goes, it does not tell you 
all you want to know about* an applicant. But let the new¬ 
comer work under the eye of the superintendent, and show 
his practical abilities in every-day experiences, and you can 

1 Mr. James also says : “ It is my deliberate judgment that I and every subordi¬ 
nate can do more for the party of our choice by giving the people of this city a good 
and efficient postal service than by controlling primaries or dictating nominations.” 

2 MacPherson’s “ Hand-book,” 18S0, p. io. 

3 From the following newspaper paragraph it appears that the same methods are 
to be employed : — 

“ Postmaster Pearson, of New York, announces that he intends to make no new 
appointments. He will promote members of the existing staff in the post-office, and 
each of the successive vacancies will be filled by a promotion from the rank below. 
This is a practical reform of one branch of the civil service, and all acknowledge its 
benefits. Why not apply it to the custom-houses of the country ? Is there any reason 
why post-offices should be out of politics and custom-houses in politics? ” — Boston 
Transcript. 





IT IS NOT UNBUSINESS-LIKE. 


29 


tell better at the end of six months u whether that boy 
will do.” It is precisely this principle which underlies the 
fourth rule of section 2 of the Pendleton bill: u There 
shall be a period of probation before any absolute appoint¬ 
ment or employment aforesaid.” The examinations are by 
no means the whole of the system. 1 They represent one 
phase of the plan, but one only, and are most appropriately 
complemented with this other proviso, founded on simple, 
common-sense principles, which commend themselves 
readily to any business man. The fact that it will be 
applied,” says Mr. Eaton (speaking of its operation in Eng¬ 
land), “ generally keeps away those young men who know, 
or whose friends know, they have no practical qualities for 
business.” 2 


1 “Of two individuals who might present themselves for such a place, any dis¬ 
creet person would say that, while they might have the same mental qualifications, 
and might be able to answer the questions, one as well as the other, yet one might 
be well fitted for the service in every way, and another would' fail in it. And the 
government will get its service best in the same way that the bank officer gets his 
clerks. While he in some way ascertains whether they have the proper mental quali¬ 
fications, he goes further than that, and examines the men personally to see whether 
they are likely to be men who, in all their characteristics, will suit.” — Congressman 
Robinson , of Massachusetts , i?i Boston Advertiser , July 30, 1881. 

The following from Mr. Merritt’s report, of last February, is very suggestive: 
“An important, and indeed indispensable, feature in the system is the rule that all 
appointments of successful candidates shall be made at first for a probationary term 
of six months only, at the end of which period the examining board shall report 
their conduct and efficiency during the term, and if the report is not satisfactory the 
employemnt ceases; but if satisfactory a reappointment is made. This probationary 
term is a practical corrective of any defects in the examinations as a test of the quali¬ 
fication and efficiency of those nominated for appointment. Only four appointees 
have been dropped at the end of the probationary term." (Report, p. 7.) 

2 “ Civil service in Great Britain,” p. 168. 




30 


THE CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM MOVEMENT. 


CHAPTER V. 

/ 

IT IS NOT INDEFINITE. 

But it is claimed that it lacks definiteness ; that there is 
no agreement, even among ‘‘reformers,” as to what specific 
plan to adopt. All of this was very true ten years ago ; but 
the constant discussion of the past few years has made many 
points familiar, has settled some, and rendered others 
clearer ; so that we have in the bill now pending in congress 1 
a measure, perfected by the experience and discoveries of 
fourteen years, and which practically expresses the common 
sentiment of citizens generally. It would be a matter of 
surprise to observe how closely the provisions of this bill 
correspond with what most men have gradually come to 
agree upon. Yet the most significant reason for its ready 
acceptance lies in the fact that it distinctly represents the 
very features we have just been discussing, namely, the 
“ practical ” and the “ business-like for, according to a 
source justly regarded as high authority on this matter, 2 it 
“ is simply the legal embodiment of the system already tested 
in several offices in Washington and in the New York 
custom-house. As it has been and is now in actual opera¬ 
tion, there is no longer any doubt of its practicability, and 
the results of its working have been such as to settle the 
question of its usefulness. Mr. Pendleton’s bill is designed 
to perpetuate it and to give it a more general application.” 
It may therefore not improperly be regarded as a growth of 


1 Senate bill 2006, 46th congress, 3d session, “ A bill to regulate and improve the 
civil service of the United States.” This bill was reported to the Senate, Feb. 16, 
1S81, by a committee, of which Mr. Pendleton of Ohio, was chairman, and was 
ordered printed. It has been issued as Senate report no. 872, 46th congress, 3d 
session. The text of the bill will be found in the appendix. 

“This bill, carefully prepared by an association of gentlemen representing both 
parties, and, after a thorough discussion, approved by a committee of the senate, 
also composed of members of both parties, was reported to the senate by Mr. Pen¬ 
dleton last February, accompanied bv an able report, with the approbation of every 
member of the committee who-attended its meetings, including members of botfi 
parties.” (Mr. Eaton, in the North American Reviezv, lune, 1881, v. 1x2, p. «i.) 

2 The Nation, Aug. iS, 1SS1, p. 126. 





IT IS NOT INDEFINITE. 


31 


legislative enactment, from the actual facts, rather than an 
artificially created provision. The bill is by no means the first 
and only legislation offered ; but this is no place in which to 
give a detailed history of the efforts of the past fourteen 
years. 1 It will, however, be of service to examine the bill, 
point by point, and see what its essential features are, and 
wherein it marks an advance. 

It consists of seven sections, and in point of brevity, con¬ 
ciseness, and directness, it is a noticeable improvement over 
the many similar bills which have preceded it. 2 As we 
have already seen, the principle on which this legislation is 
founded is that “ There can be neither patronage, nor 
favoritism in making appointments, promotions, or removals. 3 
Proceeding, therefore, on the abundantly ascertained principle 
that the preeminently fairest method of acting impartially 
is by a system of examinations, the bill provides such a 
system. (Sect. 2, part 2, rule 1.) The whole of part 
2, of section 2, is devoted to prescribing the details of 
this plan. The remainder of section 2 relates to the 
organization of the commission which is to act as the 
medium through which u to inform the conscience of the 
appointing power,” to use the language of the United States 
Attorney-General’s decision of 1873. 4 Sections 3, 4, and 5 
provide for various necessary details of executing the system, 
and securing improved results over those of previous bills, 
in the extension of the system beyond the limits of the 
capital of the country ; in making specific provision for the 
use of buildings in the various parts of the country for the 
purposes of examinations; and in making the tampering 
with these tests of merit a criminal offence. Section 6 pro¬ 
vides for the necessary arrangement of the various officers in 
groups and graded classes, for the purpose of promotion ; 
and here the organizing talent of Mr. James has clearly been 
made available. The final section, evidently the outcome 


1 For references to these efforts at legislation see the writer’s pamphlet, entitled 
“ The literature of civil service reform in the United States,” p. 9-12. 

2 The 1st section establishes the “ Civil-service commission the 2d prescribes 
its duties; the 3d appoints a “chief examiner;” the 4th provides for necessary 
expenditure; the 5th guards against abuse of authority; the 6th provides for classified 
grades of offices; the 7th prescribes date of operation, and discriminates between 
this and certain former legislation. 

3 Mr. Eaton’s pamphlet, p. 40. 

4 “ Official opinions of the attorneys-general,” v. 13, p. 524. 




32 


THE CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM MOVEMENT. 


of some careful study of conflicting legislation, sharply 
descriminates between the provisions of this bill and those 
of several earlier enactments, and fixes the date at which it 
shall take effect. The official organization to which the 
bill commits the execution of the plan is worthy of attention, 
and differs essentially not only from that of the act of 1871, 
now in force, but from that of each one of the six bills in¬ 
troduced by Mr. Jenckes (1867-71) ; and from that of the 
English civil-service commission. The Jenckes bills provided 
for a board of three (or, in some cases, four) commissioners. 
The act of 1871 1 commits the matter solely to the charge 
of three officers in each department. By the Pendleton 
bill “ two shall be experienced officers in the public service 
in Washington, but not in the same department; ” but the 
other three “ shall hold no other official place under the 
United States” (Sect. 1), the latter provision securing the 
undivided service and attention of at least a portion of the 
board to the single purpose of executing these rules. Other 
features peculiar to this bill are the selection of these 
commissioners from different parties, “ in order to be as 
far as possible removed from partisan influences the fix¬ 
ing of a secure tenure for their (/.<?., the commissioners) 
holding the position, and a specific declaration as to what 
their duties are ; the act of 1871 having left this matter too 
largely to inference. As regards the nine fundamental rules 
it is to be noted that “ original entrance to the public 
service ” “ shall be at the lowest grade ; ” that “ promotions 
shall be from the lower grades to the higher, on the basis of 
merit and competition.” Also that u there shall be a period 
of probation before any absolute appointment or employ¬ 
ment aforesaid.” Two other provisions are also in the 
direction of cleaner politics, namelyThat no person in 
the public service is for that reason under any obligation to 
contribute to any political fund, or to render any political 
service, and that he will not be removed or otherwise preju¬ 
diced for refusing to do so,” 2 and “ that no person in said 


1 “ Revised statutes,” sect. 1753. 

2 A bill was introduced at the last session of congress, by Mr. Willis, of Ken¬ 
tucky, entitled : “A bill to prevent extortion from persons in the public service, and 
bribery and coercion by such persons.” For the text of this bill, see Civil Service 
Record , no. 5, Sept. 19^ 1SS1. 





IT IS NOT. INDEFINITE. 


33 


service has any right to use his official authority or influence 
to coerce the political action of any person or body.” 

It should be noticed, also, that the proposed legislation is 
noteworthy for what it does not prescribe as well as for what 
it specifically covers. Three points in particular deserve 
attention. First, it is subversive to the slightest degree 
possible of the legislation of 1871, its aim being avowedly to 
supplement and complement what has been found of service 
in that act. 1 Second, it prescribes nothing concerning the 
“ higher officers ” who sustain relations of personal confi¬ 
dence, judicial officers, and a few others, too miscellaneous to 
be classified. 2 Third, it is silent as regards tenure of office. 
Leaving the first of these points to be treated more fully 
under another head, 3 let us examine the other two. In thus 
leaving, as it does, the “ higher officers of the government,” 
this simply follows the example of all previous hills, and 
selects for the scope of its operation the “ subordinate 
officers and the clerks by which the federal administra¬ 
tion is carried on,” embracing the employes of the seven 
executive departments at Washington, and the larger custom¬ 
houses and post-offices throughout the country. 4 It will be 
observed that in the consideration already given to the 
practical operation of the reform, the instances were almost 
solely in the Washington and New York offices. In the 
former city the whole number of clerks is considerably 
above five thousand, and in the latter about two thou¬ 
sand five hundred. “ These,” remarks the Civil-Service 
Commission report of 1874 (p. 33), “ are the places, under 
the rules of competition, about which the great struggle for 
patronage goes on and the great abuses gather.” A sweep¬ 
ing change, of this entire body is not now universally be¬ 
lieved to be a necessary condition of p>opular government. 

“A party is merely a voluntary association of citizens” (says Mr. 
Curtis, in his Saratoga address), “ to secure the enforcement of a 
certain policy of administration, upon which they are agreed. In a 


iThis act (the legislation of 1S71) “will remain in force so far as consistent 
with the bill.” — Pendleton report, p. 12. 

2 “ Civil-Service Commission report,” Apr. 15, 1874, p. 32. 

3 See Chapter 7. 

* The language of the Pendleton bill prescribes (Section 6) that its provisions 
may extend to those custom-houses and post-offices “where the whole number of 
sairl clerks and persons shall be altogether as many as fifty.” Of these offices there 
are about forty in the United States. 




34 


THE CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM MOVEMENT. 


free government this is done by the election of legislators and of 
certain executive officers who are friendly to that policy. But the 
duty of the great body of persons employed in the minor adminis¬ 
trative places is in no sense political. It is wholly ministerial, and 
the political opinions of such persons no more affect the discharge 
of their duties than their religious views or their literary prefer¬ 
ences. All that can be justly required of such persons, in the interest 
of the public business, is honesty, intelligence, capacity, industry, 
and due subordination; and to say that when the policy of the gov¬ 
ernment is changed by the result of an election from protection to 
free trade, every book-keeper and letter-carrier, and messenger and 
porter, in the public offices ought to be a free-trader, is as wise as to 
say that if a merchant is a Baptist, every clerk in his office ought to 
be a believer in total immersion.” 

Yet no one professes to believe that this is the only group 
of positions at the disposal of the government. How is it, 
to take only one for instance, as regards the great number 
of consular appointments? 1 

Speaking of the dissatisfaction of American merchants in 
China with our consular system, a writer who is personally 
familiar with the facts says : “ They contrast, for instance, 

that of Great Britain, which makes the service so honorable 
and attractive that entrance thereto is eagerly sought by an 
excellent class of specially fitted men. . . . This system 

they contrast with one which makes it possible to send a 
man to perform commercial, judicial, and almost diplomatic 
functions among an ancient, formal, oriental people, because 
he has been an efficient 4 worker * in the primaries of Osh¬ 
kosh or Yuba Dam. . . . Yet our system does not save 

us money, for satisfactory establishments at the leading ports, 
where alone they are needed, would cost less than the 
present aggregate. . . . Our consular system is some¬ 

thing ‘ to make the very gods of solemnity laugh.’ ” 2 * 

It is scarcely necessary to add anything to this presenta¬ 
tion of abuses, with which the public is only too familiar, 
except to remember the preposterous fact that the contempt¬ 
ible and half-balanced wretch who murdered the late presi¬ 
dent was an applicant for one of these positions. All this is 
true, and a “ reformer ” who had given the subject some 


1 The offices to which the legislative provisions of 1871 (and those of the Pendle¬ 
ton bill also) do not apply, are enumerated in its 13th rule. See, also, “ Civil Service 
Commission report,” 1874, p. 32. 

2 Eaton’s “ Civil service in Great Britain,” p. 440, where the language is quoted 

from the International Review , ApY., 1S79, p. 357-59. 




IT IS NOT INDEFINITE. 


35 


earnest attention, but not an exhaustive study, — nay, we may 
almost say, one who had not been practically and intimately 
concerned with the constructive work of executing and for¬ 
mulating reformed methods, — would, we think, be inclined 
to call at once for the immediate abatement of these abuses 
by legislation, as well as the others. It shows, as we believe, 
the cautious, moderate, and reasonable spirit in which the 
reform has been approached by the framers of this bill, that 
they have left, for the present, this group of offices, which 
are compassed with more practical difficulties as regards 
legislation, and “ apparently with a view to the most 
ample experience before its general enforcement,” 1 have 
limited the proposed system to the group above indicated. 2 

As regards tenure of office, a writer in the North Ameri¬ 
can Review , April, 1S81 (v. 132, p. 312), soberly declares 
that one of “ the significant provisions of the bill” is “ the 
tenure to be for life, and removal onlv for cause; ” a 
statement so extraordinarily far from the truth that it is 
charitable to suppose he had never read the bill itself. 3 The 
fact that similar statements have been widely repeated 
renders it important that the provisions of the bill should be 
intelligently examined. The bill does not even refer to 
tenure of office except in section 2, part 2, rule 6, which 
provides the officer “will not be removed or otherwise 
prejudiced for refusing to do so” (i.e., to engage in party 
work or pay party assessments). Having ascertained what 
the bill does actually provide, we may go farther, and 
ask whether it ought to provide more. 

This feature of the reform, tenure of office, has received 
extended discussion, 4 and as a result of the careful attention 


1 North American Review, v. 132, p. 555. 

2 Senator Dawes, of Massachusetts, who has been an intelligent observer of the 
reform movement during the past fourteen years, says: “ Do we not endeavor to 
cover too much ground in our discussions of this subject, and in that way diffuse, 
scatter, and differ, rather than concentrate upon one thing, and, accomplishing 
that, move on to the next ? Civil-service reform proposes to reach the best possible 
civil service by bringing about many changes, all necessary, but having an order of 
precedence and different degrees of importance.” — Letter to the Springfield Re¬ 
publican, dated July 19, iSSi. 

3 A writer in the same periodical suggests that this mis-statement resulted from 
information “ confined to the contents of a telegraphic despatch found floating in 
the newspapers” (v. 132, p. 549). 

4 See Mr. Eaton’s article, “A new phase of the reform movement.” — North 
American Review , June, 1SS1, v. 132, p. 546-58. 

Also his article, “ Tenure of office.” — Lippincott's, June, 1881, v. 27, p. 5S0-92. 

Also his remarks on this subject in his volume, “ Civil service in Great Britain,” 
p. 36S-69. 






36 


THE CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM MOVEMENT. 


given it by Mr. Eaton, who certainly has not had inferior 
opportunities for observing the practical workings of such a 
provision, is thus stated : “ The true rule is to fix the term 
of office with stern and sole reference to the most beneficial 
doing of the public work.” 1 2 In another discussion of the 
subject, the same writer says : “ Morally and legally there 

is now no right to remove without good cause.” “ There is 
also now a julain duty to remove for good cause.” Should 
the proposed legislation make any specific provision, it would 
either establish a life tenure or one lasting for a specified 
number of j’ears. The former is objectionable as leaving 
the government powerless to remove abuses if they originate, 
and the latter as directly stimulating rotation in office, on the 
theory elsewhere examined, 3 of giving every citizen a chance 
to hold office. This is strikingly characterized by Mr. 
Eaton 4 as “ a change for the sake of a change, — a theory 
that could not bring about the justice to which it appeals, 
even if official tenure was for only a single day.” 

Mr. Charles Gibbons, in a paper read before the Church 
Congress, at Providence, R.I., Oct. 25, 1881, touched upon 
a kindred difficulty : — 

“ The merit system alone cannot bring that relief to members of 
congress and the president which is so necessary to the public wel¬ 
fare. There seerfts to stand in the way of that an act of congress 
passed in 1820, which limits the term of certain offices to four years. 
Officers now commissioned for four years only are judges of terri¬ 
torial courts, assistant treasurers, principal officers of customs and 
internal revenue, governors and secretaries of territories, land 
officers, Indian agents, pension agents, postmasters of the first,, 
second, and third classes, district attorneys and marshals, numbering, 
perhaps, many thousands. 

“ So long as this act of i82oand others like it remain upon the statute 
book, so long must the president and members of congress be 
harassed by hordes of their political partisans, demanding positions 
which the laws open for them, and which they know may be filled by 
new appointments if the president chooses to make them. If the 
law operated as a restraint upon the power of removal, there might 
be some value in it; but it does not. It cannot; because the power 
is the gift of the constitution, and cannot be taken away by an act of 
congress. Mr. Webster said of it, ‘ The law itself vacates the office, 
and gives the means of rewarding a friend without the exercise of 


1 North American Review , June, 1881, v. 132, p. 558. 

2 LippincotVs , v. 27, p. 584. 

3 See p. 6. 

4 “ Civil service in Great Britain,” p. 295. 




IT IS NOT INDEFINITE. 


37 


the power of removal at all. Here is increased power with diminished 
responsibility. Here is a still greater dependence for the means of 
living, on executive favor, and, of course, a new dominion acquired 
over opinion and over conduct.’ 1 It was admitted in the debate that 
the law had wrought more harm than good, and the senate by a vote 
of 31 to 16 passed a bill for its repeal. It was at the close of the 
session, and the bill never reached the other house.” 

Most persons, we believe, who have followed Mr. Eaton’s 
line of thought, will admit with him (1) that indiscriminate 
and partisan removals are an evil of such magnitude as to re¬ 
quire the interposition of some guard ; (2) that the removal, 
together with the appointment, is most wisely ordered by 
freeing it from all connection with personal favoritism by 
the employment of the competitive examinations, and from 
all connection with party considerations by the 6th rule, 
above quoted; 2 (3) that an administration of the office on 
business principles implies and comprehends all the other 
considerations which require to be observed. 

In thus stating the provisions of this bill, and representing 
the present phase of opinion on the subject, let us not be un¬ 
derstood as insisting on this or that system as alone entitled to 
be called “ civil-service reform,” any variation from which is 
to be treated as heresy. Such a narrow and unscientific view is 
unfitting the discussion of any political principle, least of all 
of one which is so essentially grounded on reasonableness and 
fitness. That extensive difference of opinion exists as to more 
than one of the provisions of this bill is to be expected, and 
it would be strange, indeed, were the case otherwise. Yet, 
in answer to the objection of indefiniteness which may be 
brought against the reform, its framers, we believe, are 
justified in adducing this much in favor of this specific bill: 
First, it represents more than any other the result of experi¬ 
ence in practical administration, it being, as has already been 
shown, “ simply the embodiment of the actual experience 
at the New York offices and the Washington departments,” 
in legal form. 3 Second, it, more than any other, represents 
the careful study of the most efficient methods of legislative 
enactment, with a view to ascertaining what the relation of 
any proposed legislation should be to acts already in force 


1 Speech on the appointing power, Feb. 16, 1835, in his “ Works,” v. 4, p. 182. 






38 


THE CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM MOVEMENT. 


and to the administrative details. Third, no other has re¬ 
ceived so wide-spread formal endorsement and recognition 
from the public at large, from the press, and from the various 
civil-service reform organizations of the country. 1 2 The 
sentiment, not only of the press, but of the public, is well 
expressed by the New York Evening Postf as follows : — 

“Among those who have made the condition and need of the 
civil service a subject of earnest study there is scarcely any differ¬ 
ence of opinion as to the desirableness of the passage of such a law.” 


1 The latter have in most instances passed formal votes of approval, as separate 
organizations; but besides this, at the “ Conference of the civil-service reform asso¬ 
ciations of the United States,” held at Newport, R.I., Aug. u, 1881, it was 
unanimously 

“ Resolved , That the bill introduced in the senate by Mr. Pendleton, of Ohio, 
provides a constitutional, practicable, and effective measure for the remedy of the 
abuse known as the spoils system, and that the associations represented in this con¬ 
ference will use every honorable means, in the press, on the platform, and by petition, 
to secure its passage by congress.” 

2 Aug. 12, iS8i. 




IT IS NOT UNNECESSARY. 


39 


CHAPTER VI. 

IT IS NOT UNNECESSARY. 

It being the case, as has just been stated, that a desirable 
and practicable system “has been and is now in actual 
operation,” the question is a natural one, Why is any legis¬ 
lation needed ? Is not the reform movement unnecessary? 
It is needless to say that this is a consideration of the 
highest importance ; since one of the obstacles to progress in 
any country is unnecessary legislation. But let us see. If 
no legislation be needed, one of two things is true. Either 
the executive alone is sufficient for the establishment and 
perpetuation of the reform, or the legislative department 
alone. What do we find with regard to the executive? 
Under President Grant an attempt at reform was made. 
“ The adverse pressure,” says Mr. Curtis, was tremendous. 
“I am used to pressure,” said the soldier. So he was, but 
not to this pressure. In a message dated Dec. 19, 1871, he 
says, “ I ask for all the strength which congress can give 
me to enable me to carry out the reforms in the civil ser¬ 
vice.”— (Macpherson’s “ Pland-book,” 1872, p. 31.) —And 
President Grant’s testimony, in his message of Dec. 7, 1874, 
is noteworthy and significant: “If congress adjourns without 
positive legislation on the subject of civil-service reform, I 
will regard such action as a disapproval of the system, and 
will abandon it.” — (Macpherson’s “ Hand-book,” 1876, p. 
54 -) 

President Hayes came to the presidential chair with the 
undoubted advantage of having placed himself on record in 
his letter of acceptance — (See Macpherson’s “Hand-book,” 
1876, p. 212)—with unusual directness and emphasis, declar¬ 
ing that “ the reform should be thorough, radical, and com- * 
plete.” Under his administration genuine advance was made, 
for which the country is sincerely grateful; yet we find him, 
in his third annual message, Dec. 1, 1879, speaking (Mac- 




40 


THE CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM MOVEMENT. 


pherson’s “ Hand-book,” 1880, p. 9) of the “ many embar¬ 
rassments ” under which the reform had been conducted. 

President Garfield, in the course of a public life devoted to 
the careful study of the theory and practice of government, 
and after having declared that u To reform this service is 
one of the highest and most imperative duties of statesman¬ 
ship ”—{Atlantic Monthly, July, 1877^.40, p. 61)—asked, 
in that part of his letter of acceptance touching the civil 
service, that “congress should devise a method that will 
greatly reduce the uncertainty which makes that service so 
unsatisfactory.” 1 —(Macpherson’s “Hand-book,” 1880, p. 
193.) —And is not the brief four months’ experience which 
this perhaps best equipped of all our presidents had with 
the office-seeking torrent which discharged itself upon him, 
in itself the most significant commentary on the power¬ 
lessness of the executive to accomplish the reform single- 
handed? 2 And, though the appointment of government 
officers is the constitutional duty of the president, 3 it was 
never intended, to use the language of Mr. Eaton in a 
recent letter, that “the whole burthen and effort of 
reform ” should be put “ upon his shoulders, leaving sena¬ 
tors and representatives at liberty, as before, to promise 
appointments for votes and to torment the president 
daily because his doctrinaire policy, his competition and 
his rules,—as they have been called, — would not allow 
their cousins, their favorites, and other henchmen, to step 
into the places they might seek, and for which they are 
pushed. The people have a right to claim, and they will 
insist—as duty and justice require — that senators and 
representatives, as well as presidents and heads of depart¬ 
ments, shall from the beginning share in the responsibility 
if not in the work.”— (Letter in the Springfield Republi¬ 
can of Oct. 7, 1881.) 

Supposing, however, for the sake of the argument, that 


1 And in his inaugural address lie declares that “ The civil service can never be 
placed on a satisfactory basis until it is regulated by law.” 

2 So obvious was this that a daily newspaper (the Boston Iftrald), in somewhat 
• striking language, called attention to the spectacle of “a president whose instincts 

are believed to be honest, and whose intelligence is unquestioned,” who is so power¬ 
fully acted on that “ he feels the need of fixed laws to keep him from going- astray 
from the paths of virtue.” 

The language is perhaps unjust, but it serves to show the urgency of the case. 

3 See Chapter 2. 





IT IS NOT UNNECESSARY. 


41 


some one president had succeeded in accomplishing the 
reform. So long as he remains in office, well and good ; 
but the expiration of his term installs in his place a successor 
who may or may not share his own deep sense of its im¬ 
portance, and the reform is seen to be ephemeral. 1 No. 
In order to guarantee its permanence, it must not merely 
represent the convictions of some one man, but must have 
its foundations laid deep in well-considered and far-reaching 
legislation. 2 Says Mr. Curtis, in his Saratoga address 3 : — 

“ In this country law is only formulated public opinion. Reform 
of the civil service does not contemplate an invasion of the consti¬ 
tutional prerogative of the president or the senate, nor does it pro¬ 
pose to change the constitution by statute. The whole system of 
the civil service proceeds, as I said, from the president, and the ob¬ 
ject of the reform movement is to enable him to fulfil the intention 
of the constitution by revealing to him the desire of the country- 
through the action of its authorized representatives. When the 
ground-swell of public opinion lifts congress from the rocks, the 
president will gladly iloat with it into the deep water of wise and 
.patriotic action.” 

But let us interrogate the other branch of the government, 
the legislative. 


1 General Garfield, in his letter of acceptance, bore emphatic testimony to the fact 
that congress should “ co-operate with the executive departments in placing the 
civil service on a better basis. Experience has proved that with our frequent 
changes of administration no system of reform can be made effective and perma¬ 
nent without the aid of legislation.” — Macpherson’s “ Hand-book,” 1SS0, p. 193. 

2 In the hearing before the Pendleton committee at Washington, last January, the 
question was asked : “ If the executive branch of the government would take its own 
administration of public affairs into its own hands,” and administer them with the 
courage of such convictions as you have, is there any need of legislation at all ? 
— [Senate report, no. S72, 46th congress, 3d session, p. 42.] 

While the answer to tiffs is obvious, bearing in mind the constitutional declaration, 
it remains that no president will in fact do this under existing circumstances. The 
pressure is too great. 

s The same is true, not only of the fact that one president maybe succeeded by 
another who will not carry out his work, but also of heads of departments. A 
notable instance is that of the Interior Department, which, under Secretary Cox and 
Secretary Schurz, had been attaining a high degree of efficiency. 

“Mr. 'Kirkwood ” (to quote from the The Nation of May 5, 1SS1, p. 307-30S), 
“ when he came into office, found the new plan at work there, and thoroughly suc¬ 
cessful after four years’trial. But he was old; it was novel to him; he had never 
seen it or heard of it ‘ in politics; ’ it seemed ‘ visionary ’ and ‘ literary; ’ so, without 
examining its operations for one week even, he abolished it and went back to the 
old, corrupt, demoralizing, dishonest, embezzling system of allowing congressmen 
to fill the places with their henchmen as a means of paying their political debts. He 
soon plunged the department into confusion, found himself overwhelmed with office- 
seekers, and is to-day a sadder and wiser man.” 

It may be added that the levying of political assessments (which the Willis bill, 
already alluded to, seeks to abate) needs no less the specific legislation sought. 
The extent to which this abuse still flourishes even in the New York Custom House 
and Post Office is a striking confirmation of the fact. 





42 


THE CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM MOVEMENT. 


When a member of the House of Representatives, in 1872, 
Mr. Garfield said ( Congressional Globe , Apr. 19, 1872, p. 
2583), “Individual members of congress are no longer 
wholly responsible for this state of things, for they are also 
pressed by their political friends for help which, it is under¬ 
stood, they are able to render. It is hardly possible for any 
man in public life to escape this pressure.” Senator Dawes, 
of Massachusetts, in a letter to the Sprmgfield Republican , 
dated July 19, 1881, says: “No one can altogether escape 
responsibility for the existing state of things. The presi¬ 
dent has encouraged it, if not directly, certainly by recog¬ 
nizing and yielding to it.” Congressman Robinson, of the 
same &tate, says (see Boston Advertiser , July 30, 1881) : 
“ I have no question at all that members of congress would 
welcome any change that would relieve them from partici¬ 
pating in this matter.” 

It appears, therefore, that neither of the two departments 
has felt equal to the responsibility of acting alone in this 
matter. But, it may be asked, have not matters improved 
since some of these declarations were written ? Few will 
urge that the legislation of 1871 is sufficient and adequate, 
after examining the repeated appeals in the annual mes¬ 
sage of every president since that year, and of the other 
government officers friendly to reform, for farther legisla¬ 
tion. 1 In that act, particular methods, since seen to be well- 
nigh essential, were not specifically prescribed, and thus 
obstruction was made possible. But it may be supposed 
that since the competitive examinations, as conducted at 
New York and elsewhere, have proved themselves so abun¬ 
dantly effective, they may be extended to the other offices 
without legislation. On this point a recent statement of 
Mr. Eaton sheds important light, and shows that it is not 
to be expected : — 

‘ ‘ The self-sacrificing labors of a few men of rare ability, patriotism, 
and experience, whose earnestness in the cause went beyond words, 
scorning alike the sarcasms of chieftains and high officials, alone 
made such results possible. It is too much to expect that their 
patriotic labors will be indefinitely continued. Such men are not 
likely to be found in every place where examinations will be needed. 
A great nation has no right to ask that private citizens as a charity, 


1 See McPherson’s “ Hand-books of Politics. 




IT IS NOT UNNECESSARY. 


43 


and the more self-sacrificing and devoted of its salaried subordinates 
working beyond office hours, — as have been the facts in the cases to 
which the learned senator has referred, — shall carry on a great na¬ 
tional reform unaided — unrecognized even—by the national con¬ 
gress, in order that its members may not have to perform a plain 
public duty at a time when, perchance, it might not be agreeable.” — 
[Letter in Springfield Republican, Oct. 7, 1881.] 

The fact that the president has an undoubted right to ask 
the opinion of a senator in the matter of an appointment, 
where he is certain that a candidate unknown to him is per¬ 
sonally known to the senator, is not to be confused with an 
obligation to do so. 1 In the early days of the republic, with 
the constitutional provision fresh in the public mind, the 
matter came before President Washington 2 for action, and 
was promptly settled by him. 

“ In 1794 it was rumored that President Washington contemplated 
appointing Alexander Hamilton to be minister to England. Mr. 
Monroe, who was the leader of his party in the senate, was opposed 
to this appointment, and wrote to the president, asking that he be 
granted a personal interview in regard to the matter. President 
Washington, with a wisdom and foresight that is wonderful, saw 
instantly the danger of establishing such a precedent.” He refused 
to grant the interview, and, on the 9th of April, 1794, wrote as fol¬ 
lows to Monroe : “ If you are possessed of any facts or information 
which vrould disqualify Col. Hamilton for the mission to which you 
refer,” I request “thatyou would be so obliging as to communicate 
them to me in writing. ... As I alone am responsible for a 
proper nomination, it certainly behoves me to name such a one as, 
in my judgment, combines the requisites for a mission so peculiarly 
interesting to the peace and happiness of this country.” 3 

For a time, as may well be imagined, the effect of this un¬ 
mistakable deliverance from the executive, which must have 
cooled the air like a thunder-shower, was to put an end to 
any tendency towards the usurpation of executive powers by 
congress. Insidiously, however, it has gradually made itself 

1 A legitimate and constitutional view of the matter is that which, according to 
the testimony of Congressman Stone, “ Senator Edmunds of Vermont is said to per¬ 
mit to himself. His reputed rule of action is to take no notice of matters of execu¬ 
tive appointment, unless the appointing power requests his advice in regard to a 
pending appointment.” — Boston Advertiser, July 30, 18S1. 

2 For striking facts connected with this circumstance and others collected by 
Mr. John Jay, and furnished to the New York Tribune, see its issue of June 12, 18S1. 

For a valuable study of the course the practice has taken, see the article by Sen¬ 
ator G. F. Hoar, of Massachusetts, on “The appointing power,” North American 
Review , Nov., 1881, v. 133, p. 464-76. 

3 Writings of George Washington,’ v. io, p. 399-400. 





44 


THE CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM MOVEMENT. 


a recognized precedent under the name of the “ courtesy 
of the senate ; ” 1 and the advent of the civil-service reform 
discussion, fourteen years ago, found it not only securely in¬ 
trenched, but a most formidable obstacle to any such reform. 
It is of no little interest now to notice that, in 1872, Gen. 
Garfield, then a member of congress, brought the force of 
his commanding intellect and profound knowledge of politi¬ 
cal history and development to bear upon this very matter in 
a characteristically able and convincing argument. 2 In the 
light of this fact, it is not a matter of wonder that, on be¬ 
coming president, he should, in the still unforgotten contest 
of last spring over the New York collectorship nomination, 
have given the “courtesy of the senate” its most telling 
blow. Whatever we may think as to the justifiable nature of 
this struggle, it was effective. 3 It is in the light of this 
earlier position of his also that a passage in General Garfield’s 
letter of acceptance, which has, we think, been somewhat 
misconstrued, should be understood : — 

1 It is somewhat remarkable that one of the most extreme statements of this per¬ 
verted view should come from Gen. Grant. He said, June 12, 1SS1: “ When the presi¬ 
dent makes an appointment in any state, and it fails to elicit the approval of the two 
senators from that state, the matter should end there, and the nomination be re¬ 
jected. If the Republican senators from any other state object to any nomination, 
the rest of the party is expected to support them in the matter without exception. 
The same is, of course, true of the Democrats.” — Providence Star, June J5, 18S1. 

2 Congressional Globe, April 19, 1S72, p. 2583. 

See also his language in the magazine article elsewhere referred to: — 

“The evil has been greatly aggravated by the passage of the tenure of office act 
of 1867, whose object was to restrain President Johnson from making removals for 
political cause. But it has virtually resulted in the usurpation by the senate of a 
large share of the appointing power. The president can remove I10 officer without 
the consent of the senate; and such consent is not often given, unless the appoint¬ 
ment of the successor nominated to fill the proposed vacancy is agreeable to the 
senator in whose state the appointee resides. Thus, it has happened that a policy 
inaugurated by an early president has resulted in seriously crippling the just powers 
of the executive, and has placed in the hands of senators and representatives a 
power most corrupting and dangerous.” 

“ I affirm that this present custom is an apostasy from the original policy of the 
government, — an apostasy alarming in its character, — and that the chief reason 
why a reform in the civil service is required is that the three powers, or particularly 
the two powers of the government, the legislative and the executive, may be restored 
to their independence, may be left unawed and uninfluenced by the pressure of 
personal dictation and control.” — Atlantic Monthly, July, 1S77, v. 40, p. 61. 

3 I he theory as to his action in this matter, suggested by a recent correspondent 
of The Nation, deserves consideration; but it should be remembered that this can, at 
best, be only a matter of speculation. The correspondent says : “ Thoroughness in 
the mastery of every situation in which he was placed was a leading trait.” —“Are 
we not to believe that he made himself master of that situation in which he found 
himself placed with reference to the spoils system when he came to be president? ” — 

In his secret purpose, thinking his way along, with light dawning on him as he 
went, independent of popular criticism,” “ he cleared the way of the most formidable 
obstacle to civil-service reform.” — “ In doing so, he took the risk of not being under¬ 
stood in case of failure; but he risked his reputation for the sake of the people.” — 
The Nation, Oct. 13, 1881, p. 293. 





IT IS NOT UNNECESSARY. 


45 


“To select wisely from our vast population those who are best 
fitted for the many offices to be filled, requires an acquaintance far 
beyond the range of any one man. The executive should, therefore, 
seek and receive the information and assistance of those whose 
knowledge of the communities in which the duties are to be per¬ 
formed best qualifies them to aid in making the wisest choice.” 1 

He by no means recognized in this declaration the right 
of congress to invade his prerogative. Indeed, in another 
part of the letter, he expressly disclaims that very thing. 
Nevertheless, what was the case on his accession to office ? 
His time was seized upon and monopolized by applicants 
for office and members of the government, engaged in press¬ 
ing the claims of candidates. The Nation says : — 

“ It was not work imposed on him by the constitution or the laws. 
It contributed nothing to the improvement of the administration 
or of any other public interest. It did not tend to promote the 
public welfare in any manner whatever.” 

“ Now, in what did this work consist? What was it? Simply the 
work of listening to arguments in favor of giving some hundreds of 
small offices, which were not vacant, to a few thousand insignificant 
and obscure persons who had discovered that they were unable to 
make a decent livelihood in any of the ordinary pursuits of active 
American life. It was to this class— one of the least important and 
least worthy of the community—that he made the tremendous 
sacrifice of health and strength to which all the newspapers called 
attention during his first four months of office.” 

It is, then, one reason, and by no means an unimportant 
one, why the proposed reform is “not unnecessary;” that 
44 congress,” to use the recent language of a newspaper 
writer, 44 is part of the thing to be reformed and the meas¬ 
ures need to receive, by this legislation, u that essential 
strength and stability which only the approval of congress 
can impart.” 2 


1 McPherson’s “Hand-book,” iSSo, p. 193. 

2 “ Report of Pendleton committee,” p. 12. 




46 


THE CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM MOVEMENT. 


CHAPTER VII. 

IT IS NOT DESTRUCTIVE. 

An intelligent and acute observer in writing on the subject 
of government, ten years ago, 1 called needed attention to the 
extent to which the well-being of the people may be made 
to depend upon “ improvement,” in the matters alluded to, 
more “ than even in what are called great reforms.” 

There is much truth and sound sense in this observation, 
and one which lies at the foundation of the most intelligent 
support which the present movement has. Destructive 
legislation, while it may have a glamour for unthinking 
minds, has never commended itself to the intelligence of 
English-speaking people, either in this country or Great 
Britain. It is for this reason that a plain, moderate, business¬ 
like measure, like the one now urged, has to meet the 
criticism not only of those to whom such measures are not at all 
welcome, but also of those who demand some more striking, 
perhaps revolutionary step. It is, however, fortunate that 
only a small minority is represented by “the impatient 
reformer who troubles himself with nothing short of some 
grand enactment sweeping the whole field at once, and pass¬ 
ing into history under some great name, as celebrated English 
statutes do, all-comprehensive and all-powerful for regener¬ 
ation and reformation.” (Letter of Senator Dawes, to the 
Springfield Republican, dated July 27, 1881.) There are 
several reasons why the movement is to be regarded as con¬ 
structive rather than destructive, and as comprehending the 
various elements which go to make a stable and well-balanced 
enactment. And, first, it does not leave out of consideration 
the historical experience ; for a plan of constructing systems 
of government which should leave out of account the teach¬ 
ings of history would be short-sighted indeed. The sugges¬ 
tive writer just quoted, remarks in another place, “ History is 


1 “Thoughts upon government,” by Sir Arthur Helps. (Am. ed., p. v-vi.) 




IT IS NOT DESTRUCTIVE. 


47 


the chart and compass for national endeavor. Our early 
voyagers are dead ; ” were it not for the history of these 
voyages contained in “hoarded lore of all kinds, each 
voyager, though he were to start with all the aids of 
advanced civilization (if you could imagine such a thing 
without history), would need the boldness of the first 
voyager.” 1 

Other nations have had similar abuses to remove, 
have grappled with them, and have risen above them. 
The present German empire owes its efficient admin¬ 
istration to the fact that in the early part of the century 
Baron Stein “ secured the gratitude, and, in large measure, 
the greatness of his country, by three great measures 
of administrative reform,” — among them, that of the 
“ constitution of the supreme administrative depart¬ 
ments.” 2 Competitive examinations are in force in most of 
the leading European government services. 3 The French 
system of consular service, for example, has been so admi¬ 
rably efficient that it has remained unchanged for nearly fifty 
years. It is, of course, the efforts made in England which 
appeal most strongly to our interest and attention, and it is 
a fact of no little significance, as showing the careful 
account which those who most clearly see the need of the 
reform in this country have taken of the experience which 
other countries furnish, that out of the work,of the United 
States Civil Service Commission during the past ten years has 
grown the most comprehensive addition to the literature of 
the British experience. 4 . No extended reference is necessary 
here to a subject which has been so comprehensively treated 


*“ Friends in council,” by Sir Arthur Helps, xst series, v. i, p. 190-191. 

2 Eaton’s “Civil service in Great Britain,” p.337. See also the discussion of 
the German methods of reform, considered by R. von Mohl, in the “Journal of the 
American Social Science Association,” 1S70I European systems of public service 
are also discussed by J. G. Rosengarten, in this journal, 1871. Compare, also, 
the report of Mr. Patterson’s committee to the United States senate, July 2, 186S, 
on “ The foreign service.” 

s Mr. Eaton also states: “There is not a great nation of Europe in which the 
large post-offices and custom-houses have not been as corrupt and inefficient 
as in New York. Long before there were parties to seize the monopoly of 
patronage and spoils that monopoly belonged to the crown or the aristocracy. The 
need in each of the more advanced nations of the better officials which that mo¬ 
nopoly excluded, has long since enforced the test of examinations. Examinations 
once established in any country have never been abandoned or limited, but have 
been steadily extended. All the leading European states now enforce them, and in 
each they aid the cause of education and political morals.” 

4 “ Civil service in Great Britain,” by Dorman B. Eaton, New York, 1879. 





48 


THE CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM MOVEMENT. 


in Mr. Eaton’s admirable volume. In brief, it may^be said 
that “ it must be apparent how wide and varied, in Great 
Britain and India, is the field of official life, political 
activity, and personal ambition and jealousy, which is now 
dominated by the reform methods. They extend to all but 
a very few of the highest places for the exercise of the 
appointing power of the crown. They are supreme through 
almost the whole vast range of what was, for generations, 
the patronage of the treasury and of members of parlia¬ 
ment, — a patronage which was as much greater than that of 
our heads of departments and members of congress, as their 
authority would be greater if the entire legislative and 
executive power of the states was made a part of the federal 
jurisdiction. The merit system, therefore, with its tests of 
character and capacity, and its claims of justice and prin¬ 
ciple against favoritism and partisanship, has achieved a 
victory over patronage as seductive and universal; has 
suppressed opportunities of intrigue and corruption as 
varied and numerous; has overthrown a tyranny of partisan 
and official influence as pervading and powerful, as would 
be involved in this country in a struggle which should draw 
to itself every selfish and partisan element; all the offices 
and gains; all the intrigue and influence ; all the hopes and 
fears of a presidential campaign, of senatorial contests, and 
of elections for governors, united into one grand issue, 
dependent upon a single national vote at the polls .” 1 

In the next place, it is constructive because it does not 
shut its eyes to the peculiar and individual circumstances of 
our own nation. The historical experience of other countries 
is to be studied and availed of, but not necessarily to be 
transferred bodily. It is for the very reason (as was shown 
at the beginning of this discussion ) 2 that the reform is essen¬ 
tially democratic in its nature, that, at certain points, its 
better adaptedness to American than to English institutions 
will call for a replacing of some of the features of the Eng¬ 
lish plan by improved methods . 3 Sir Arthur Helps, also, 


1 Eaton’s “ Civil service in Great Britain,” p. 316. 

2 See Chapter 1. 

3 Mr. Eaton is chairman of the Civil Service Commission of the United States, and 
his volume was prepared directly in consequence of an official request of President 
Ilayes, in 1S77, that he wou ld investigate and make a report to him concerning the 
action of the English government in relation to its civil service, and the effects of 





IT IS NOT DESTRUCTIVE. 


49 


whom we have already quoted, enlarged upon the inadequacy 
of competitive examinations alone to bring the “ fittest men ” 
into the service of the government. * 1 But the plea which he 
so earnestly makes is answered by the supplementary prin¬ 
ciple of probationary appointments, an essential and most 
vital principle in the bill now proposed in this country, 2 
but not, at the time Sir Arthur was writing (1871), fully 
established in the enactments of the British system. 3 An 
examination of the American legislation, and especially 
of the bill now proposed, will show an intelligent and 
statesman-like aim to construct it on the basis of the under¬ 
lying principles of the American political system. 

Again, it is constructive for the reason that the proposed 
enactment disturbs existing legislation to the least degree 
possible, and, in fact, may be described as essentially com¬ 
plementary to these enactments. As has alreadv been 
indicated, 4 the legislation of 1871 “will remain in force so 
far as consistent with this” bill now proposed. Nor is it 
simply an attempt to avoid destructive legislation by thus 
conforming to the obvious methods of supplementing the 
former acts; hut the closing section (Sect. 7) shows a 
painstaking research, on the part of its framers, to avoid any 
unwitting and unforeseen clashing with existing laws. Nor 
does it avoid destructive methods alone in its general theory 
and scope ; but, descending to each individual sub-office in 
which its provisions may be put in force, its method is not 
to sweep aside at one blow the whole organization ; but, 
after a certain specified date, beginning at the lowest grade, 
the new element is introduced, which is gradually to per- 

such action since 1850. “This volume,” says a competent authority, “will become 
a text-book among us on the science of administration. It would be well worth the 
pains to compile an abstract from it in the form of a manual for use in schools.” — 
( The Nation , Jan. 15, 18S0, v. 30, p. 47.) —Another journal (the New York Tribune) 
says: “The gravity of his style is in keeping with the dignity of his subject. His 
statements exhibit exhaustive research, discriminating judgment, candor of opinion, 
and moderation of expression.” 

1 A writer (an Englishman) in the Contemporary Review, October, 1881, p. 647, 
says : “ In my opinion it would hardly be well for the American people slavishly to 
imitate the English system.” In England, he says, a reforming minister maybe 
“ seriously hampered by the unreasoning conservatism and official routine displayed 
by the permanent staff "of his department.” It should be noted that this writer ex¬ 
pressly declared (p. 645 of the same article) that “ Competitive examinations seem 
to be the only means whereby the civil service of the United States can be purified 
and invigorated.” 

2 See Pendleton bill, sect. 2, pt. 2, rule 4. 

3 Eaton’s “ Civil service in Great Britain, ” p. 229-30, 264. 

4 See Chapter 3. 





50 


THE CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM MOVEMENT. 


meate the mass. (Pendleton bill, Sect. 6.) The framers of 
the bill thus recognize the value of time and patience as 
elements in any permanent and substantial construction ; and 
not less in the fact already indicated, 1 that the measure, as 
a whole, is moderate rather than sweeping; and, as regards 
the scope of its operations, begins with those government 
offices only to which the provisions can at first be most 
practically applied. 

But if the reform may not with truth be described as 
destructive, what shall be said of the partisan system which 
it aims to replace? Can any possible theory of civil-service 
reform be so utterly destructive as this principle, avowed by 
a former government-officer?—“I believe that when the 
people vote to change a party administration they vote to 
change every person of the opposite party who holds a 
place, from the president of the United States to the 
messenger at my door.” (Quoted in Mr. Curtis’ Saratoga 
address.) Mr. Schurz, in an address made in 1876, pre¬ 
sented it in very forcible language : — 

“ Imagine that, in this year of the great centennial anniversary, 
some of the wise men of this republic—Washington, Adams, Jeffer¬ 
son, Hamilton —could rise from their graves in order to ascertain by 
tour of inspection what had become of their work in these hundred 
years. Ofcourse we would have to show them our civil service; and 
would it not make them stare? We would have to explain to them 
how, nowadays, things are managed ; how, on the accession of a new 
president, the whole machinery of government is taken to pieces, 
all at once, to be rebuilt again out of green materials, in a hurry; 
how 60,000 or 70,000 or 80,000 officers are dismissed, without the 
least regard to their official merits or usefulness, simply because 
they do not belong to the party, to make room for a ‘ new deal.’” 

Or, to quote another authority : “At the end of each four 
years the entire federal patronage (amounting to one hundred 
and ten thousand offices) is collected in one lot,” which the 
President, when elected, is “ compelled to distribute to his 
party.” “No nation can withstand a strife among its own 
people, so general, so intense, and so demoralizing. No 
contrivance so effectual to embarrass government, to disturb 
the public peace, to destroy -political honesty , and to en¬ 
danger the common security , was ever before invented.” 2 

1 See Chapter 5. 

2 “ Report of the committee on alleged frauds,” March 3, 1879 (Mr. c * N. Potter, 
chairman), p. 64. 




IT IS NOT DESTRUCTIVE. 


51 


There is no necessity whatever for exaggeration. The 
abuses of various descriptions which have made so painful 
an impression on the public during the later years of our 
history are fresh in memory : the whiskey frauds, the New 
York Custom House frauds, the Sanborn contracts, the In¬ 
dian bureau corruption, the Star route frauds, — all of which 
have been directly connected with the civil service. It is 
not, it is true, “ the worst on the globe ; ” for those of Russia 
and Turkey are, doubtless, capable of surpassing it in these 
abuses. Nor does it mend matters much to claim, as has 
been done, with a show of truth, that it is, “ for the most part, 
a bad system in good hands.” (Boston Saturday Evening 
Gazette .) 1 As has been abundantly shown, there is nothing 
to guarantee its being confined to “ good hands.” 

Nor is it absolutely necessary to look for the immediate 
and sudden ruin of the country. To quote once more Sir 
Arthur Helps, 2 “ When a state has attained a certain amount 
of force and prosperity,” “ it takes a long time to break it 
down. You may heap muddlement upon muddlement, and 
with a free people, though much mischief is done and 
much good prevented, still they work on steadily, each man 
in his private capacity doing something to retrieve the effects 
of bad or of indolent government.” 3 

Would any “lover of his country, however,” to quote his 
next remark, “wish for such a state of things to continue 
indefinitely,” and wish to “ leave things alone ”? 

Not so thought General Garfield, and if any American 
public man was entitled to be called preeminently a con¬ 
structive statesman, our late president was. “ To reform 
this service,” he wrote, “ is one of the highest and most 
imperative duties of statesmanship.” 4 


1 The writer in the Contetnporary Review , already quoted, alludes (Oct. 18S1, 
p. 645), though with evident gratification and surprise, to “ the splendid work which 
has been done in many public departments, both state and national, in America.” 

2 It is somewhat amusing to notice that certain opponents of civil-service reform 
in this country have delighted in quoting Sir Arthur Helps as an authority. (See 
the point cited by Mr. B. F. Butler, when a member of congress from Massachusetts, 
Cotigressiojictl Globe , April 19, 1S72, p. 25S2.) But Sir Arthur’s works, if searched, 
will show that he had an unmistakable sympathy with efforts to improve govern¬ 
ment administration; and believed that, “if public business is for the future to be 
better conducted than it is now, the public offices must be intellectually strengthened.” 
— “ Friends in council,” 2d series, v. 2, p. 159. 

8 “ Friends in council,” 2d series, v. 2, p. 15S. 

4 Atlantic Monthly , July, 1877, v. 40, p. 61. 





52 


THE CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM MOVEMENT. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

IT IS NOT OPPOSED TO PUBLIC SENTIMENT. 


On the contrary, it is strongly favored by public sentiment. 
But, it may be demanded, how do we know that? We 
know that in a certain year public sentiment was in favor 
of the Whig party, because that party received a vote of 
1,275,017; while its antagonist received only 1,128,702. 
But has any general vote ever been taken to show the strength 
of the civil-service reform sentiment? Assuredly not; and yet 
any one who has carefully observed its manifestation will, 
we think, admit the statement. 

Nor is this a fact of slight moment. It is of all-pervading 
importance. The question as .to what the people themselves 
think and believe is ultimately the significant one. It is 
this which the English writer last quoted had in mind in 
his reference to “a free people ” retrieving the effects of bad 
government. If it be the case in Great Britain, much more 
is it in this country, whose government springs directly from 
the people ; and we shall find that in the discussion of the 
subject during the past few years this phase of it has been 
frequently uppermost. Senator Dawes, in his letter of July 21, 
1881, to the Springfield Republican , expresses himself to the 
effect that, while the president and congress are undeniably 
responsible for the reform, yet its speedy accomplishment, or 
its hindrance, depends on the people themselves, who have 
it in their power to delay it indefinitely by their u pressure” 
for office. 1 Of this attitude of Mr. Dawes, the Springfield 


1 In the course of the hearing before the Pendleton committee, in February, he 
also said : “I think that for years past, and for years to come, the members of con¬ 
gress have been, and will be,” between the upper and the nether millstone.” On the 
one side is the executive, who makes those appointments, and on the other the 
“ people, who have been viciously educated by all parties” “ for the last forty years. 
They have come to believe that this is the way to live; the administration at the 
other end of the capital conforms to that view, and the members of congress are in 
the middle.” “ We cannot get legislation and make it permanent, unless our constitu¬ 
ents behind us will support us in it.” “ We can never make any better laws than in 
the long run the public behind us sustain.”— (Report of Pendleton committee, p. 42.) 





y 


IT IS NOT OPPOSED TO PUBLIC SENTIMENT. 53 


Republican remarks : u His disposition to hold the people to 
their full share of responsibility for a manifest evil is aggres¬ 
sive, but not unhealthy.” An ably edited New England 
daily (the Providence Journal ) has returned to this 
phase of the subject again and again. In its forcible way 
it remarks: — 

“The reform needed is a reform of public opinion. No law will 
be of the slightest effect in the long run, so long as the education of 
the people is that everybody is fit for every office; and that, if it can 
be got, the means by which it is obtained do not much matter. Our 
children have been taught that political office is the symbol and 
guarantee of public esteem and personal power; and they have seen 
that ‘ out West ’ mighty mean men have been elected justices of the 
peace. Why should not everybody go in for the spoils? ” 

Mr. Chace, recently elected to the House of Representa¬ 
tives, from Rhode Island, suggests : — 

“ Let us remember that the rulers of the people are what the 
people make them. No fountain rises higher than its source. If 
the people are honest, intelligent, and determined to preserve their 
own rights and maintain the government in its purity, then they 
will have honest and intelligent servants.” 

“ That civil-service reform must come in this country is inevitable. 
That it will come if it is left to the people who dispense the offices 
it seems to me is very uncertain. The movement must arise with 
the people.” 

There is food for reflection in these statements, founded, as 
they are, on universally acknowledged truths. 

But they gather fresh significance, considered in connec¬ 
tion with the sentiment which has been manifesting itself. It 
has not always been so. A dozen years ago, to quote from 
Mr. Curtis’s Saratoga address, “ To the country, reform was 
a proposition to reform evils of administration, of which it 
knew little, and which at most seemed to it petty and imper¬ 
tinent in the midst of great affairs.” And if we seek for the 
reasons underlying the growth of this sentiment, we shall 
find fresh evidence of the natural and healthy process by 
which, with very little artificial shaping, it has thus developed 
itself. Without much doubt the first advance was made 
when the actual evidence of its practical operation was fur¬ 
nished. The administrations of Secretary Schurz in the 
Interior Department, and Collector Merritt and Postmaster 
James at New York, bore stronger testimony than any words, 



54 


THE CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM MOVEMENT. 


to the fact that it was possible, practical, and business-like. 
And the spontaneous recognition of their services by the 
business community, chambers of commerce, etc., has been 
dwelt upon elsewhere in this discussion. 1 Another advance 
in public sentiment was connected with the accession ot 
General Garfield to the presidency. It was felt to be signifi¬ 
cant that a public man who had so conspicuously identified 
himself with advocating this reform should be placed in the 
executive chair. It is moreover true that many citizens 
expected to see him consummate the reform single-handed, 
and the fact that he, exceptionally equipped for this as he 
was, was seen not to be able to withstand the pressure, and 
to be appealing to congress for specific legislation, was a 
striking lesson as to the necessity of legislation. It will be 
seen, in fact, that these successive stages of the reform con¬ 
stituted in themselves an education of the public mind. 

That the fearful tragedy by which the country was cruelly 
robbed of President Garfield’s precious life and inestimable 
services has a significant bearing upon the matter, none can 
doubt. To state with perfect accuracy what its significance 
is, and to indicate its full extent and comprehensiveness, 
is a question of much gravity and practical difficulty. 
We are yet too near the terrible event to judge it without 
heat. This much, however, is plain, that (to use the lan¬ 
guage of the Boston Transcript }, u this sad event which 
has befallen the nation, and under the shadow of which it 
still rests, has directed public attention to civil-service re¬ 
form as it never was before ” directed. Public opinion had 
been accumulating in volume and in definiteness for the past 
few years, but the impetus given by this shock was remark¬ 
able. To quote Mr. Curtis once more : — 

“Like the slight sound amid the frozen silence of the Alps that 
loosens and brings down the avalanche, the solitary pistol shot of 
the 2d of July has suddenly startled this vast accumulation of pub¬ 
lic opinion into conviction, and on every side thunder the rush and 
roar of its overwhelming descent, which will sweep away the host 
of evils bred of this monstrous abuse. This is an extraordinary 
change for twelve years; but it shows the vigorous political health, 
the alert common-sense, and the essential patriotism of the country, 
which are the earnest of the success of any wise reform.” 


1 See Chapter 4. 





IT IS NOT OPPOSED TO PUBLIC SENTIMENT. 


55 


Of the sentiment now existing there are numerous mani¬ 
festations. Even a casual examination of the daily and 
weekly press, during the past few years (and particularly 
the past few months), reveals it. The matter has, within 
these years, also developed a literature of its own, of less 
ephemeral nature than the newspaper . 1 It has become a sub¬ 
ject of earnest and determined discussion in our colleges . 2 
The voice of the business community has been expressed 
through the resolutions and addresses of chambers of com¬ 
merce and boards of trade. With remarkable unanimity 
the pulpit has expressed it . 3 Congressmen have put them¬ 
selves on record in the matter, in reported conversations or 
in letters to the press. Local and state political organiza¬ 
tions, in their annual conventions, have voiced the convictions 
of the party . 4 The national political conventions, in their 
utterances during the past ten years, have shown an in¬ 
creasing definiteness and emphasis scarcely exceeded by 
the presidents’ messages of the same period, and individ¬ 
ual voters of the country, gathered in the “ civil-service re¬ 
form associations,” which are now springing up all over the 
country, have served to crystallize and render more effective 
the reform sentiment . 5 

Let us glance for a moment in detail at the gradual rise, 


1 See the writer’s pamphlet, “ The literature of civil-service reform in the United 
States” (18S1). 

2 In order more effectually to encourage and to develope this, two prizes, one of 
$ioo and the other of $50, have been offered by the Boston Civil-Service Reform 
Association, for the best essays on the subject presented by college students. — See 
Civil Service Record , No. 2, June 18, 1881. 

3 At the seventh church congress in the Protestant Episcopal church in the 
United States, held at Providence, Oct. 25-28, i8Si,the subject of civil-service re¬ 
form was discussed with great vigor. (See Providence Journal , Oct. 26, 1881.) 

4 See The Civil Service Record for some of these miscellaneous expressions of 
sentiment. 

c The most fully organized of these associations are those in New York and 
Brooklyn, and those in Boston and Cambridge. Their close proximity renders it 
practicable for the two former to combine with each other, and the two latter to 
combine with each other, in the issue of publications, the holding of public meet¬ 
ings, the conducting of correspondence, etc. 

The publications of the New York Association are : — 

I. “ Purposes of the Civil-Service Reform Association.” 

II. “ The beginning of the spoils system in the national government, 1829-30.” 

III. “ The spoils system and civil-service reform in the custom-house and post- 
office at New York,” by Dorman B. Eaton. 

The Boston and Cambridge Associations publish The Civil-Service Record, a 
periodical of which six numbers have appeared. 

The Providence Association (“Young Men’s Political Club”) has published 
the pamphlet already alluded to, “ The literature of civil-service reform in the United 
States,” by W. E. Foster. 






56 


THE CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM MOVEMENT. 


in force and degree, of the sentiment of the national politi¬ 
cal conventions. 1 

The improvement is gratifying, and will any one say that 
there was not sad need of it? For the dictum, already 
quoted, “ No fountain rises higher than its source,” has a 
wider significance than as referring to the votes cast for 
some particular measure. It is because the people have not 
before this risen to the point of disapproving a system the 
spirit of which develops professional politicians, rather than 
statesmen, that our politics have remained on the lamentably 
low plane which have characterized them for many years. 
It cannot be claimed that there has been a lack of distin¬ 
guished and able men in the country. In previous periods 
of the government they have appeared. This nation has 
had in its revolutionary epoch such men as Benjamin Frank¬ 
lin and Samuel Adams ; in the period of its constitutional 
development such men as Alexander Hamilton and Thomas 
Jefferson ; and in the early presidential administrations such 
presidents as Washington, Madison, and John Quincy 
Adams. The discussion of vital constitutional questions, 
later on, developed the three great statesmen of our middle 
period, Webster, Clay, and Calhoun. Already, however, 
the partisan system of spoils had settled down over the 
country, and when the great heroic epoch of the civil war 
dawned in 1861, while it was impossible that the occasion 
should not call forth and develop characters memorable 
through all coming history, yet the great names of that 
period were not connected with legislation. 

A notable exception readily suggests itself to all minds. 
He who so lately took his seat in the presidential chair, only 
to be wickedly murdered after a few short months, was the 


1 In 1872 the Republican national platform favored making “ honesty, efficiency, 
and fidelity, the essential qualifications for public positions.” In 1876 it declared in 
favor of allowing all other appointments (than the higher offices) “ to be filled by per¬ 
sons selected with sole reference to the efficiency of the public service,” — a noticeable 
advance in definiteness and specific provisions. In 1S80 it demanded “ that congress 
shall so legislate that fitness, ascertained by proper practical tests, shall admit to 
the public service; ” thus advancing to the recognition of examinations as a method, 
and legislation as an essential. In 1SS1, at the Massachusetts Republican Convention 
(a definite bill to compass this reform having in the mean time been introduced in 
congress), the sentiment expressed was thus definitely formulated: “ Appointments 
to clerkships to depend, in the first instance, upon successfully passing a proper 
examination, open to all applicants without distinction of party; and, secondly, upon 
satisfactory service during a period of probation.” 




IT IS NOT OPPOSED TO PUBLIC SENTIMENT. 


67 


most conspicuous example of*a statesman as distinguished 
from a politician that later years have witnessed. A states¬ 
man needs a broad foundation of scholarship on which to 
build ; he needs also a natural capacity and faculty for ac¬ 
quiring the details of his subject, and a close and ready famil¬ 
iarity with history ; he needs, moreover, a natural predilec¬ 
tion for affairs of state, and long and careful training in their 
exercise ; he needs a wide and thorough knowledge of men, 
and daily intercourse with them ; he needs that excellent 
quality, tact, in dealing with other men ; he needs, certainly, 
a sense of humor, for the lack of which even Mr. Gladstone 
has sometimes made his course a needlessly difficult one;. 
he needs (to use the language of President Eliot, of Har¬ 
vard) 1 “the power of clear, forcible, and persuasive exposi¬ 
tion.” Judged by this standard, does our late president fail 
to come up to the requirements? Rather, is he not the most 
conspicuous instance we know, of a man coming to the presi¬ 
dency, nay, coming to each position of responsibility which 
he occupied in turn, before reaching the presidency, fully 
equipped for that position by long, patient, profound, far- 
reaching study of the principles and problems involved ? 2 It 
has been said of another public man, whose iDublic career 
recently closed quite suddenly, that “the most important 
questions of his time have taken no hold upon him : tariff 
reform and our commercial relations with other countries; 
methods of taxation ; regulations of elections,' etc.” But 
whoever that public man may be, to whom such language 
was apjfficable, there is, assuredly, no one of whom it was 
more untrue than President Garfield. Plis acquaintance 
with all these points was intimate and thorough. Yet this 
is not all. President Eliot goes on to say, that, if mental 
preparation be essential, moral qualities are even more so. 
President Garfield was, as the whole American people 
have seen in the closing portion of his career, a man, in the 
truest, highest sense. He possessed a character preeminent 
in its loftiness and purity, a possession which he has left as 


J At the Schurz banquet, Boston, March 22, 18S1. — (In Harvard Register , v. 3, 
P- 2 S 7 *) 

2 *• There was nothing cloudy about his writing or speaking.” It “ contains a body 
of doctrine of which, taken for all in all, any American may be proud, — such doctrine 
as perhaps no other man among us, who for so long a period successfully retained 
his place in public life, could show.”— The Nation, Sept. 29, 1SS1, p. 246. 






58 


THE CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM MOVEMENT. 


a precious legacy to the American people. Where will 
vou find elsewhere a man of such “ high heart,” to use the 
French term, who bore not only with fortitude, but with 
unflagging spirits, a phenomenal pluck and even keen sense 
of humor, the long and excruciating days of pain? His 
was the “ victorious spirit,” which not even the most adverse 
physical surroundings could subdue. Well has a writer in 
Punch expressed it: — 

“ So fit to die, with courage calm, 

Armed to withstand the threatening dart. > 

Better than skill is such high heart 
And helpfuller than healing balm. 

“ So fit to live, with power cool 
Equipped to fill his function great, 

To crush the knaves who shame the state; 

Place-seeking pests of honest rule. 

“ Equal to either fate he’ll prove. 

May Heaven’s high arm incline the scale 
The way our prayers would fain avail, 

And weight it for long life and lwe.” 1 

Where will you find one who has attached greater impor¬ 
tance to the heroic virtues of patience and self-reliance ; who 
has climbed, by dint of his own efforts, to the highest point; 
who has, with calm dependence on the results of time, taken 
time for the accomplishment of needed projects? Where 
will you find one in whom the moral element has so pre¬ 
dominated ; who has acted constantly, not for the sake of 
gaining the flattering and shallow praise of some one else, 
but has constantly obeyed the dictates of his own conscience 
and preserved his own self-respect? “ It is of some moment 
to me,” he once said to a meeting of his own constituents, 
“ what this and that one may think of me ; but this is of no 
weight as compared with this other consideration, What 
will James A. Garfield think of me?” 

But how exceptional to the direct tendency of the system 
itself such a career as President Garfield’s was, his whole 
life witnesses, for it was a prolonged struggle with that sys¬ 
tem ; nay, his words themselves bear witness. In an 


1 Punch, July 16, i88i, p. 15. 




IT IS NOT OPPOSED TO PUBLIC SENTIMENT. 


59 


article already quoted from, he said: “The present system 
. . . impairs the efficiency of the legislators; . . 

it degrades the civil service; it repels from the 

service those high and manly qualities which are so neces¬ 
sary to a pure and efficient administration ; and, finally, it 
debauches the public mind by holding up public office as 
the reward of mere party zeal. To reform this service is 
one of the highest and most imperative duties of statesman¬ 
ship.” 1 

This declaration is strikingly borne out by figures which 
have been collected, showing, for example, the withdrawal 
of educated men from active participation in the govern¬ 
ment. 2 “ The truth is, and it is well that it should be im¬ 
pressed upon the public mind, that the struggle for princi¬ 
ples is ennobling. It makes men think. It makes men 
feel themselves to be the instruments of the great forces that 
uphold and control society.” “ A struggle for spoils, on the 
other hand, is the reverse of ennobling.” 3 

It is not, then, that the nation is destitute of men who can 
render the highest service to their country, but that that ser¬ 
vice has not attracted them. Has there not been, to quote 
again from the same journal, a diversion of some of “ the 
most powerful personalities into business enterprises? Is 
it not true that the finest spirits, and the men best qualified 
by character, and best equipped by culture for public ser¬ 
vice, have turned away from such a career into the walks of 
literature, art, science, or philanthropy? And can it be said 
that there is no connection between such facts as these and 
the ascendency of the politician class ?” “ It is time to substi¬ 
tute measures for men, and principles for patronage, in 
the management of parties and the conduct of the govern¬ 
ment. Personal politics beget small men.” 

For many years public sentiment has supported, or seemed 
to support, the rule and management of the late senior sena¬ 
tor from New York. This is no place to give to,his career 
any extended consideration, though the minute analysis, — 
one might almost say “ dissection ” — of it in a late periodi¬ 
cal article well merits thoughtful study. 4 It is sufficient to 

1 Atlantic Monthly , July, 1877, v. 40, p. 61. 

2 Penn Monthly , July, 18S1, v. 12, p. 516-17. 

3 Professor Charles Carroll Everett (in Poston Sunday Herald , Oct. 16, 1881). 

* International Review , Oct., 1881, v. 11, p. 375 - 9 °- 





60 


THE CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM MOVEMENT. 


say, in the language of another writer, 1 that “ The interest 
he now awakens is due to the fact that he is the representa¬ 
tive and the victim of the spoils system, from the great 
manor where it was born and is now developed. His utter 
neglect of great things, and his supreme care for little things, 
his rise, his rule, and his collapse, alike illustrate the spirit 
and the effects of that system.” 

It is plain, then, that there has been a progress in public 
opinion not only truly remarkable, and extremely gratifying, 
but well-nigh controlling. We say u well-nigh controlling,” 
for it is above all things important, in a matter like this, to 
recognize the extent and influence of the opposing sentiment. 

And thei'e are several reasons for this. In the first place, 
the very fact that the reform is essentially a reasonable one, 
and one which advances by gradual and natural stages, 
renders it natural that there should be many honest and sin¬ 
cere lovers of their country who are not yet persuaded as to 
its overwhelming importance. And so there are every day 
many who are for the first time opening their eyes to the 
fact that the reform is not undemocratic, is not unnecessary, 
is not impossible, or is not unbusiness-like. And, until 
recently, it has been true, as expressed by the Boston Adver¬ 
tiser , that u the masses of the people will not be moved 
until, with the proof that matters are in a bad way, they 
are furnished with a complete, intelligible, and practical 
plan, demonstrably better in practice than the old, while 
obviously better in principle ; ” an objection removed by the 
bill now proposed. All sensible advocates of the reform will 
heartily admit, with the same paper, that it is a great 
mistake to “think that any one who tries to test the value 
of their remedy is an enemy. Every one who is prepared 
to admit that the prevailing method of choosing subordinate 
officers of the United States is irrational and harmful to 
the political morals of the people is a possible reformer.” 
In this msyny-sided, bewilderingly complex civilization of 
ours there is opportunity to give time and attention to only 
a small number of those topics which one would like to study 
thoroughly ; and, unquestionably, there are hundreds of citi¬ 
zens who have heretofore dismissed this reform from their 


1 Princeton Review , Sept., 1SS1, p. 169. 




IT IS NOT OPPOSED TO PUBLIC SENTIMENT. 


61 


minds for this reason, who, once they give their whole 
mind to the subject, cannot help being “ reformers,” if they 
try . 1 2 Another reason is, as Mr. Eaton suggests in his letter 
to Mr. Dawes,” that “ the nomenclature of reform is so little 
settled, and so much feeling enters into its discussion, that we 
should not be surprised either at honest misapprehensions 
or at artful misrepresentations.” Perhaps the most potent 
element of misunderstanding, however, is in a supposed in¬ 
herent clashing of theory and practice. Were the present 
movement a “ theoretical ” one, it would justly give occasion 
for distrust. That it is, in its present stage, advocated by 
some, out of the entire mass who “see only one side of the 
shield,” is not incredible. “ Many of the friends of reform,” 
says Mr. Eaton , 3 “ are only in the stage of disgust, denun¬ 
ciation, and general discontent.” “They have not those 
definite views needed for devising or even for giving effective 
support to better methods.” No one can wonder that a man 
like Senator Dawes, who has given years to the study 
both of its theory and practice, should say with some weari¬ 
ness : “ I have found the theoretical reformer very impatient 
and unwilling to listen to anything but a reference to his 
demand for a law which shall do this work and save us 
further trouble .” 4 And one can readily sympathize with 
the feeling thus expressed by a daily newspaper : 5 “ But 
what did Senator Dawes expect of or from the ‘ theoretical 
reformer’? Has not the 4 reformer’ insisted for the last 
thirty years that law, not virtue in the people, would sup¬ 
press intemperance? There is, or ought to be, a theory 
underlying each and every law. The trouble with the re¬ 
formers, with which the senator is exasperated, is that their 
theory excludes the most essential elements of the problem.” 

1 See Mr. Schurz’s address at Boston, March 22, 1S81, where he said : “ What the 
country wants is an honest, wise, business-like administration of public affairs. It 
wants to have questions of public interest discussed and decided upon their own merits. 
In order to have this, the offices of the government must cease to be mere spoils of 
party contests, and thus the spoils must cease to be a great motive-power in political 
contests. Many who did not see this yesterday see it to-day, and many who do not 
see it to-day will see it to-morrow. I believe there is a growing sentiment in favor 
of a thorough reform, and greater hope of its accomplishment. What has been 
gained in that direction cannot be abandoned by either political party, with im¬ 
punity, and each party will find itself obliged to move onward, if it be only from 
motives of self-preservation.” 

2 Printed in the Springfield Weekly Republican, Sept. 30, 1SS1. 

3 “ Civil service in Great Britain,” p. 402. 

4 Third letter to the Springfield Republican , dated Aug. 13, 1SS1. 

5 Providence Journal, Aug. 19, 18S1. 







62 


THE CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM MOVEMENT. 


Let it not be supposed that the objections urged do not 
comprise some definite and clearly stated criticisms of 
specific points. These are worthy of the most careful and 
candid study on the part of those who support the reform . 1 
But there is nothing surprising in this. It is the common 
and the natural course, and gives us reason to believe in its 
ultimate establishment. Its experience may be (to quote 
once more from Sir Arthur Helps) that of another great 
question in another country. This opinion, he says , 2 “has 
gone through a series of stages of development. It was at 
first held by two or three thoughtful writers, who perhaps 
were the only persons who thoroughly believed in it, and 
were willing to accept all its consequences. The opinion 
very gradually grew into favor, until it came to be held by 
an overwhelming majority.” The practical question now 
is what shall be done to assist in its development. For one 
thing, no steps backward should be permitted. That which 
has been accomplished should be sacredly guarded. That 
so large a body of citizens already believe in its necessity 
should be only an additional reason for extending and en¬ 
larging the public sentiment. There should be intelligent 
and painstaking study brought to bear on the provisions of 


1 The following- references to articles presenting objections are here given, not as 
comprising an exhaustive list, but embracing some which deserve particular atten¬ 
tion : — 

Argument by Mr. J. M. Connell, included in Mr. Jenckes’s report of May 14, 1868, 
P- 73 - 77 - , 

“ Will democracy tolerate a permanent class of national office-holders? ” — Lippin- 
cott's Magazine, Dec., 18S0, v. 26, p. 690-97. [Answered in same magazine, June, 
18S1, v. 27, p. 580-92. “Tenure of office,” by D. B. Eaton.] 

“Reform versus reformation,” by A. W. Tourgee.— North American Review, 
April, 1SS1, v. 132, p. 305-19. [Answered in" same magazine, June, 1881, v. 132, 
p. 546-58. “ A new phase of the reform movement,” by D. B. Eaton.] 

“Loop-holes in the Pendleton scheme of reform.”— Boston Advertiser , Aug. 26, 
1881. 

A discussion ofthe competitive examination feature. — The A 7 tierican, April 2,1SS1, 
v. i, p. 

Protessor W. G. Sumner, of Yale College, a student of the reform for many years, 
discusses “Presidential elections and civil service reform.” — Princeton Review , 
Jan., 18S1, p. 129-4S. 

Senator Dawes of Massachusetts, who has been intimatelv identified with the legis¬ 
lative discussion, the last ten years, examined some of the features proposed, in three 
letters to the Springfield Republican , July 21, July 29, and Aug. 15, 1S81. 

lie was answered by Mr. Eaton in four letters to'the same paper, Sept. 30 (weekly], 
and Oct. p 17, and 24, 1SS1. Also (perhaps by a former cabinet minister), in The 
Nation , Aug. 4, 1881, v. 33, p. 36. A conversation with Mr. David A. Wells, as to 
the constitutional point, is printed in the Boston Sunday Herald , of Aug. 21, 1S81. 

For other articles see the pamphlet, “ The literature of civil-service reform in the 
United States,” p. 13. 

2 “ Thoughts upon government,” Am. ed., p. 13. 





IT IS NOT OPPOSED TO PUBLIC SENTIMENT. 


63 


the reform and of kindred points in administration. Es¬ 
pecially should there be the freest discussion of objections, 
and a candid examination of intelligent criticism. All this, 
it maybe said, will be practically an education of the public. 
Precisely ; and, should this be accomplished, whatever legis¬ 
lation is enacted will have a tenfold security of basis. Says 
a daily paper : — 

“ How to utilize this informed and awakened public sentiment, 
and to apply the practicable remedy in law and in administration, is 
the problem of the hour.” 

If any point has been clearly forced upon our mind in the 
course of this discussion it is that the executive has repeat¬ 
edly appealed for assistance in the shape of additional legis¬ 
lation ; that members of congress themselves admit its neces¬ 
sity ; and that the sentiment of the people is largely for that 
specific thing. Clearly the next step should be the passage 
by congress of some bill, and it is difficult to see that it could 
do better than to pass the particular bill which we have been 
considering. Whether this will be done is of course still a 
matter of speculation. “It may be true,” says the New 
York Evening Post , “that congress, as at present con¬ 
stituted, is not favorable to any thorough-going reform 
measure.” “But congress has had to do many things in 
obedience to public opinion, and there is an opportunity 
now for the friends of civil-service reform to make that opin¬ 
ion commanding and effective.” One congressman, during 
the summer, has expressed the optimistic opinion that the 
civil service will take care of itself if we only give the 
people “ the highest mental, moral, and physical culture.” 
(Senator Ingalls, at Williams College, July 4, 1881.) 
It is also somewhat disheartening, as the Boston Ad¬ 
vertiser suggests, that, considering “ the length of time 
during which the question has been agitated and the length 
of time during which the system has been on trial in some 
form, here and elsewhere, some of our congressmen show a 
singular unfamiliarity with its place and usefulness as an 
adjunct of the civil service.” 

In his letter to the “ Springfield Republican ,” dated 
Sept. 22, 1881, Mr. Eaton says: — 

“It now remains to be seen whether the senators and representa¬ 
tives from Massachusetts will be ready to take that lead upon the 



64 


THE CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM MOVEMENT. 


subject, in the halls of legislation, which her people have taken 
among the States. And who can doubt that they will?” 

About the date of this letter the annual Republican State 
Convention in Mr. Dawes’s state (Massachusetts) was held. 
At this, as at every previous state convention since 1875? 
intelligent resolutions were adopted on the subject of the 
civil service. The platform of this year, however, says 
“ The Nation” (Sept. 29, 1881, p. 242), “goes one step 
further than any party platform has hitherto done, in the 
minuteness of its definition of a 4 thorough reform.’” “It 
will be difficult,” adds The Nation , “for any Massachu¬ 
setts representative, at least, to get round the above in any 
creditable way.” They “are cut off by the platform from 
the work of barren criticism.” In this connection it is 
worthy of notice that Mr. Rice, a representative from 
Massachusetts, has stated definitely : — 

“As I am at present advised, my opinion is that the first thing is 
for congress to enact (similar) legislation, leaving the execution of 
it to heads of departments, and watch the result.” 1 

Also that Mr. Hoar, the junior senat6r from Massachu¬ 
setts, has, in a current periodical article, 2 given the Pen¬ 
dleton bill the weight of his approval. He says : — 

“It has worked well in several important offices. Its adoption will 
be an emphatic expression, both by congress and the executive, of a 
desire to cooperate in getting away from the evils of the existing 
system. It will enable the executive to make an honest and earnest 
effort to take the civil service of the country out of politics, under 
circumstances which promise the cooperation of congress and the 
support of public opinion.” (p. 476.) 

The need of caution in estimating the extent of public 
sentiment has been touched upon in these pages. No stu¬ 
dent of history or political science will question the fact that 
legislation without a sound basis of public sentiment is 
valueless. There is, however, such a thing as erring in the 
direction of allowing legislation to lag too far behind the 
sentiment of the people, as well as the opposite error. In 

1 Boston Advertiser, July 30, 18S1. 

2 “The appointing' power” by Senator George F. Hoar, North American Review, 
Nov., 18S1, p. 464-76. 




IT IS NOT OPPOSED TO PUBLIC SENTIMENT. 


65 


fact, as Mr. Eaton says, in a third letter to the Springfield 
Republican (dated Sept. 25, 18S1) : — 

. “ In Webster’s speech on the Greek revolution, he treateddebate 
in congress as a fit means of arousing and guiding a sound public 
opinion. In his view, and in that of Mr. Sumner, as I interpret 
them, it is the part ot a statesman and legislator not to doubt and 
hesitate in silence, until swept on by an omnipotent sentiment, but 
to speak early in behalf of what ought to be done, and to speak fear¬ 
lessly, for the encouragement of the spirit and intelligence which 
make it possible. ‘There are excitements to duty,’ says Mr. Web¬ 
ster in^his oration at Bunker Hill, ‘but they are not suggestions of 
doubt.’ It is a part of the duties and functions of a legislator not 
only to discover and arraign abuses in the public administration, 
but to devise and put in force the proper remedies. They have no 
right to be ignorant as to such remedies.” 

Certainly there are few who better express the sentiment 
of Massachusetts than her present able and statesmanlike 
governor. Governor Long, as reported in the Boston 
7 raveller x (July 27, 1881), says : — 

“Mr. Dawes would have done better service” (than in seek¬ 
ing some other remedy) “ if he had developed the simple, practi¬ 
cal, and excellent plan reported last year by the committee of which 
he is an able member, and of which Mr. Pendleton is chairman. 
It is a plan which has the merit of working no violent changes. 
It applies only to bureaus where fifty or more appointees are em¬ 
ployed. In New England, therefore, it would affect, I take it, only^ 
the BPston Custom House and Post Office. Its adoption would make 
no more shock than the shifting of a belt from one wheel to another. 
It guards against unfit and mistaken selections, by putting every 
successful candidate upon probation, so that if with all his success 
and merit in passing examination he fails after a few months’ trial 
in practical work, he receives no appointment, and gives way to the 
next in order. This reform is coming as sure as fate,” “ not because 
we have not good men now in our civil service, nor because, indeed, 
we can much improve on them ; not because it is English ; but be¬ 
cause it is fair, because it is democratic, and gives to the people equal 
chance to go in on their merit and not on their control of political 
influences. And, finally, it is coming because the business interests 
of the people demand it, — demand that the congressman shall give 
his time, which is their time, to questions of legislation and not of 
office filling, — and because the congressman himself feels the im¬ 
perative need of such relief.” “ But just as soon as the Pendleton- 
Dawes bill is made plain to the people, and they see what a practical 
measure it is, and realize its value, they will compel the adoption’ 
of it or something else as good.” 


1 Quoted in Civil Service Record, No. 4, Aug. 13, 1881. 






66 


THE CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM MOVEMENT. 


It has been questioned by certain journals whether “the 
active politicians in this country,” and “ those in Washington 
upon whose shoulders the responsibilities of the government 
rest, realize the depth of feeling that has been stirred in the 
hearts of the people of this country on the subject of civil- 
service reform.” It is certainly to be hoped that they do. In¬ 
deed the testimony collected here, as well as in another part 
of this discussion, shows that some of them at least appreciate 
it; and if they do not, certainly the people are to be blamed 
for not expressing their convictions in unmistakable form. It 
must be remembered that in a representative government, 
the legislative body expresses in the long run the popular 
voice ; and, to quote once more from a journal not commit¬ 
ted by any means to the support of this bill* (the Provi¬ 
dence Journal): — 

“When it is really thought better to limit or regulate this power, 
the voice of the people will be heard. Congress will pass just such 
laws as the constituencies of the members by a large majority agree 
upon. There is no man upon the face of the earth more amenable 
to reason than a congressman, when that reason is backed by a f- 
ficient number of votes.” 

Among the duties justly considered imperative in this 
matter, not the least imperative is that of the people them¬ 
selves, to manifest their convictions. 



APPENDIX. 


THE PENDLETON BILL. 

A Bill to Regulate and Improve the Civil Service of the 

United States. 

Whereas common justice requires that, so far as practicable, all 
citizens duly qualified shall be allowed equal opportunities, on 
grounds of personal fitness, for securing appointments, employ¬ 
ment, and promotion in the subordinate civil service of the United 
States; and whereas justice to the public likewise requires that the 
government shall have the largest choice among those likely to an¬ 
swer the requirements of the public service; and whereas justice, 
as well as economy, efficiency, and integrity in the public service, 
will be promoted by substituting open and uniform competitive ex¬ 
aminations for the examinations heretofore held in pursuance of the 
statutes of 1853 and 1855 : therefore, 

Be it enacted , etc. : That the president is authorized to designate 
and employ five persons, not more than three of whom shall be ad¬ 
herents of the same party, as Civil-Service Commissioners, and said 
five commissioners shall constitute the United States Civil-Service 
Commission. Three of said commissioners shall hold no other 
official place under the United States, and the other two shall be ex¬ 
perienced officers in the public service in Washington, but not in 
the same department, and shall remain commissioners no longer 
than they shall remain in the public service in some department, 
and reside in the District of Columbia. 

The president may remove any commissioner for good cause, 
after allowing him an opportunity for making an explanation in 
answer to any charges against him. such cause to be stated in 
writing in the order of removal, which shall be filed with the sec¬ 
retary of state; but no removal shall be made by reason of opinions 
or party affiliations; and any vacancy in the position of commis¬ 
sioner shall be so filled by the president as to conform to said con¬ 
ditions for the first selection of commissioners. 

The three commissioners required not to hold any other official 
place shall each receive a salary of $3,500 a year, and the two 
members holding some other public office shall each receive a salary 
of $500 a year in addition to their respective salaries in said office. 
And each of said commissioners shall be paid his necessary ex¬ 
penses incurred in the discharge of his duty as a commissioner. 



68 


APPENDIX. 


Sect. 2. That it shall be the duty of said commission : — 

First. To devise and submit to the president for his approval and 
promulgation, from time to time, suitable rules, and to suggest ap¬ 
propriate action for making this act effective ; and when so approved 
and promulgated it shall be the duty of all officers of the United 
States in the departments and offices to which any such rules may 
relate, to aid, in all proper ways, in carrying said rules, and any 
modifications thereof, into effect. 

Second. And, among other things, said rules shall provide and 
declare, as nearly as the conditions of good administration shall 
warrant, as follows : — 

First, for open, competitive examinations for testing the capacity 
of applicants for the public service now classified or to be classified 
hereunder; 

Second , that all the offices, places, and employments so arranged 
or to be arranged in classes shall be filled by selections from among 
those graded highest as the results of such competitive examina¬ 
tions. 

Third , that original entrance to the public service aforesaid shall 
be at the lowest grade; 

Fourth , that there shall be a period of probation before any abso¬ 
lute appointment or employment aforesaid; 

Fifth , that promotions shall be from the lower grades to the 
higher on the basis of merit and competition ; 

Sixth, that no person in the public service is for that reason 
under any obligation to contribute to any political fund, or to render 
any political service, and that he will not be removed or otherwise 
prejudiced for refusing to do so; 

Seventh, that no person in said service has any right to use his 
official authority or influence to coerce the political action of any 
person or body; 

Eighth , there shall be non-competitive examinations in all 
proper cases before the commission, when competition may not be 
found practicable; 

Ninth, that notice shall be given in writing to said commission 
of the persons selected for appointment or employment from among 
those who have been examined, of the rejection of any such persons 
after probation, and of the date thereof, and a record of the same 
shall be kept by said commission. 

And any necessary exceptions from said nine fundamental provi¬ 
sions of the rules shall be set forth in connection with such rules, 
and the reasons therefor shall be stated in the annual reports of the 
commission. 

Third. Said commission shall make regulations for, and have 
control of, such dominations, and, through its members or the ex¬ 
aminers, it shall supervise and preserve the records of the same; and 
said commission shall keep minutes of its own proceedings. 

Fourth. Said commission may make investigations concerning 
tl^e facts, and may report upon all matters touching the enforcement 
and effects of said rules and regulations, and concerning the action 



THE PENDLETON BILL. 


69 


of any examiner or board of examiners, and its own subordinates, 
and those in the public service, in respect to the execution of this 
act. 

Fifth . Said commission shall make an annual report to the 
president, for transmission to congress, showing its own action, 
the rules and regulations, and the exception thereto in force, the 
practical effects thereof, and any suggestion it may approve for the 
more effectual accomplishment of the purposes of this act. 

Sect. 3. That said commission is authorized to employ a chief 
examiner, who may also be the secretary of the commission, a part 
of whose duty it shall be, under its direction, to act with the ex¬ 
amining boards, so far as practicable, whether at Washington or 
elsewhere, and to secure accuracy, uniformity, and justice in all 
their proceedings, which shall be at all times open to him. 

After an opportunity of being heard in explanation of any charge 
against him, he may be removed by the commission for cause to be 
entered on its minutes, and a successor appointed. The chief ex¬ 
aminer shall be entitled to receive a salary at the rate of $4,000 a 
year, and he shall be paid his necessary travelling expenses incurred 
in the discharge of his duty. 

The commission is also authorized to employ a stenographer and 
copyist, who shall be entitled to receive a salary of $1,600 a year, 
and” he may be removed and a successor appointed as is provided as 
to the chief examiner. The commission may also engage the 
services of a messenger, at a salary of $600 a year, and may dismiss 
the same at pleasure. 

The commission may, at Washington, and in anv other part of 
the country where examinations are to take place, designate and select 
a suitable” number of persons in the official service of the United 
States, after consulting the head of the department or office in which 
such person serves, to be members of boards of examiners, and may 
at any time substitute any other person in such service in the place 
of any one so selected. 

And any person so selected shall be entitled, during the period he 
shall serve on any such board, to receive a compensation for such 
service at a rate not exceeding $500 a year in addition to his regular 
salary in the public service; the amount of such additional compen¬ 
sation to be approved by the president, but the whole of such addi¬ 
tional compensation which shall be authorized to be paid in any one 
year to all the examiners shall not exceed $10,000. It shall be the 
duty of the collector, postmaster, and other officers of the United 
States, at any place outside the District of Columbia where examina¬ 
tions are directed by the president or by said board to be held, to allow 
the reasonable use* of the public buildings for holding such examina¬ 
tions, and in all proper ways to facilitate the same. 

Sect. 4. That it shall be the duty of the secretary of the interior 
to cause suitable and convenient rooms and accommodations to be 
assigned or provided, and to be furnished, heated, and lighted, at 



70 


APPENDIX. 


the city of Washington, for carrying on the work of said commission 
and said examinations, and to cause the necessary stationery and 
other articles to be supplied, and the necessary printing to be done 
for said commission. And the cost and expense thereof, and the 
several salaries, compensations, and necessary expenses hereinbefore 
mentioned, upon the same being stated in detail and verified by 
affidavit, shall be paid from any money in the treasury not other¬ 
wise appropriated. 

Sect. 5. That any said commissioner, examiner, copyist, or 
any person in the public service, who shall wilfully and corruptly, 
by himself or in cooperation with one or more other persons, defeat, 
deceive,.or obstruct any person, in respect of his or her right of ex¬ 
amination according to any such rules or regulations, or who shall 
wilfully, corruptly, and falsely mark, grade, estimate, or report 
upon the examination or proper standing of any person examined 
hereunder, or aid in so doing, or who shall wilfully and corruptly 
make any false representations concerning the same, or concern¬ 
ing the person examined, or who shall wilfully and corruptlj r 
furnish to any person any special or secret information for the pur¬ 
pose of either improving or injuring the prospect or chances of any 
person so examined, or to be examined, being appointed, employed, 
or promoted, shall for each such offence be guilty of a misdemeanor, 
and, upon conviction thereof, shall be punished by a fine of not less 
than $100 nor more than $1,000, or by imprisonment not less than 
ten days nor more than one year, or by both such fine and impris¬ 
onment. 

Sect. 6. Within sixty days after the passage of this act it shall be 
the duty of the secretary of the treasury, in as near conformity as 
may be to the classification of certain clerks now existing under the 
163d section of the Revised Statutes, to arrange in classes the sev¬ 
eral clerks and persons employed by the collector, naval officer, sur¬ 
veyor, and appraisers, or either of them, or being in the public 
service, at their respective offices in each customs district where the 
whole number of said clerks and persons shall be all together as 
many as fifty. And thereafter, from time to time, on the request of 
the president, said secretary shall make the like classification 01- 
arrangement of clerks and persons so employed, in connection with 
any said office or offices, in any other customs district. And upon 
like request, and for the purposes of this act, said secretary shall 
arrange in one or more of said classes or of existing classes, any 
other clerks, agents, or persons employed under his department in 
any said district not now classified ; and every such arrangement and 
classification, upon being made, shall be reported to the president. 

Secotid. Within said sixty days it shall be the duty of the post¬ 
master-general, in general conformity to said 163d section, to sep¬ 
arately arrange in classes the several "clerks and persons employed, 
or in the public service, at each post-office or under any postmaster 
of the United States where the whole number of said clerks and 



THE PENDLETON BILL. 


71 


persons shall together amount to as many as fifty. And thereafter, 
from time to time, on the request of the president, it shall be the 
duty of the postmaster-general to arrange in like classes the clerks 
and persons so employed in the postal service in connection with 
any other post-offices; and every such arrangement and classifica¬ 
tion, upon being made, shall be reported to the president. • 

Third. That from time to time said secretary, the postmaster- 
general, and each of the heads of departments mentioned in the 
158th section of the Revised Statutes, and each head of an office, 
shall, on the request of the president, and for facilitating the execu¬ 
tion of this act, respectively revise any then existing classification 
or arrangement of those in their respective departments and offices, 
and shall, for the purpose of the examinations herein provided for, 
include in one or more of such classes, so far as practicable, subor¬ 
dinate places, clerks and officers in the public service, pertaining to 
their respective departments not before classified for examination. 

Sect. 7. After the expiration of four months from the passage 
of this act no officer or clerk shall be appointed, and no person shall 
be employed to enter or be promoted in either of the said classes 
now existing, or that may be arranged hereunder pursuant to said 
rules, until he has passed an examination, or is shown to be 
specially exempted from such examination in conformity herewith. 

But nothing herein contained shall be construed to take from 
those honorably discharged from the military or naval service any 
preference conferred by the 1754th section of the Revised Statutes, 
nor to take from the president any authority not inconsistent with 
this act conferred by the 1753d section of said statutes; nor shall 
any officer not in the executive branch of the government, or any 
person merely employed as a laborer or workman, be required to be 
classified hereunder; nor, unless by direction of the senate, shall 
any person who has been nominated for confirmation by the senate 
be required to be classified or to pass an examination. 



INDEX 


Page 

Abuses.15, 51 

Administrations, Changes of.40, 41, 50 

Akerman, Hon. A. T. (attorney-general).11 

Appointments to office .... 6, 10-12, 36-37, 40, 43-45 

“ Aristocracy (An) of office-holders,” alleged . . . 7-8,62 

Arthur, President C. A..27 

Assassination of President Garfield .... 20, 22, 34, 54 
Assessments, Political . . . . . . . . 35, 41 

Associations, Civil-service reform ..... 38, 55 

Attorneys-General, Official opinions of .... 11-12 

Beard, Alanson W. (collector of the port of Boston) . . 17 

Bills. (The Jenckes bills).32 

— (The Pendleton bill) . . . . . . *67 

— (The Willis bill) . . ..7,32,41 

Boston Civil-service Reform Association . . . ‘ . -55 

Boston Custom House.17, 65 

Business community, Sentiment of 16, 18, 19, 20, 28, 29, 34, 54, 55, 65 
Business-like methods ..... 19, 20, 24-29, 30-31 

Cabinet officers . . . . . . . . 19-23, 41 

Caucus, The ........... 9 

Chace, Hon. J.53 

Changes of officers for political reasons 7, 18, 36-37, 40, 41, 50-51 
Church Congress at Providence, 1881 ..... 36, 55 

Civil-service commission ..... 11,12,31,33,48 

Civil-service Reform Associations ..... 38, 55 

Clerks under operation of Pendleton bill . ... . *33 

Coercion, Prevention of . . . . . . .7, 32, 41 

Collectors, Four years’term of ....... 36 

Commissions. See Civil-service commission. 

Competitive examinations . . 12, 14-16, 18, 20-29, 42-43, 49 

Congress, Action of.11, 12, 49, 63-66 

Congressmen, Sentiments of 41-42, 52-53, 55, 63-66 

Constitutional provision as to appointments . . . 10-12 

Constitutionality of civil-service reform . . . 10-12, 62 

Constructive features of the reform.46-51 


















INDEX. 


73 


Page 


Consular appointments. 

Contributions by office-holders 
Conventions, Political . 

Cost of administration reduced . 

“ Courtesy of the senate ” 

Cox, Hon. J. D. 

Curtis, George William 
Custom-houses . . . .12, 


34-355 47 
• 4i 


55* 56 
16, 19, 20 


. 6, 43-45 

.135 4 i 

20-21, 33, 34, 39, 41, 50, 53‘, 54 


H-175 27-28, 29, 41, 44, 51, 65 


Dawes, Senator H. L. . . . 35 , 

Definite plans of reform 
Democratic nature of the reform 
Departments, Executive 
Destructive, Not . 

Drills and tests in New York Post Office 
Duties of civil-service commissioners . 


42, 46, 52, 53, 61, 62, 64, 65 

30- 38 
5-9, 48, 65 

10-11,33, 41 
33» 46-51 
. 26 

31 - 32 


Eaton, Dorman B. 6, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 26-30, 36, 40, 42, 

47-48, 61-63 

Edmunds, Senator G. F. 43 

Eliot, President C. W., of Harvard University . . . .57 

England. See Great Britain. 


European governments . 
Examinations, Competitive 
•‘Examinations, Pass” . 
Examinations, Topics of 
Examining board . 
Executive, Functions of the 
Executive departments . 
Existing legislation 
Expense, Provision for. 


12, 14-16, 


47-48 
18, 20-29, 4 2 -435 49 
. 18 

24-26 
11, 12 

10, 11, 40, 41, 43-45 

• i9- 2 3> 39-41 
11, 12, 49 
3 1 , 42 


Fixed term of office 

Four years’ term (for collectors, etc.) 


• 36 

36-37 


Garfield, President J. A., 10, 19, 20, 22, 40-42, 44 - 45 , 51 , 54 , 56-59 

Grant, President U. S.39* 44 

Great Britain, Civil service of ... 7 - 8 , 13 , 26, 47-49 

Growth of public sentiment.53“54* 56 


Hayes, President R. B .13* H* 18, 20, 27, 39, 48 

Helps, Sir Arthur.43~47* 48-49* 5 1 * 62 

“ Higher officers,” not under provisions of Pendleton bill . 33“35 
Hoar, Senator G. F. • • • • • • 43* 64 


Impracticable, Not 
Indefinite, Not 
Ingalls, Senator J. J. 
Interior Department 


13-23* 61 
• 30-38 

. 63 

i3-!4, 22, 41, 53 

















74 


INDEX. 


Page 

James, Hon. Thomas L. 14, 17-20, 25, 27, 28, 31, 53 

Jenckes, Hon. Thomas A. . . . . . . *32 

Johnson, President A. . . . . . . . . *44 

Justice, Department of.22 

Kirkwood, Hon. S. J.22, 23, 41 

Law of 1820. (Four years’term).36-37 

Legare, Hon. H. S. (attorney-general) . . . . .12 

Legislation, Efforts at, 1867 to 1881 ...... 31 

Legislation, Existing . . . . . . . 11, 12, 37, 49 

Legislation not unnecessary ..... 39-45, 63-66 

Legislation (The) of 1871 . . . . . . 11, 32, 33 

Legislative department.10, 39, 41, 42 

Life tenure.35, 36 

“Literary” nature of the examinations alleged . . . 24, 25 

Literature of civil-service reform . . . . . . 31, 55 

Long, Hon. John D. ......... 65 


MacVeagh, Hon. W.12, 22 

Massachusetts Republican platform, 1881 . . . 11, 56, 64 

Merritt, Edwin A. (late collector of the port of New York) 14, 15, 16, 

„ 17* 27, 28, 29, 53 

Misconceptions of the proposed reform .... 35, 61 

Moderation of the proposed reform .... 35, 49-50 

Murphy, Thomas. 15, 16 


Navy Department . . . 

Necessity for legislation .... 

New York, Number of clerks in . 

New York Chamber of Commerce 
New York Civil-service Reform Association 
New York Custom House . . 12, 14-17 

New York Post Office . 

Newport conference of 1881 
Nominations to office . 

Number of employes 


27-28, 29, 
14, 17-19, 25, 


10 


Objections to civil-service reform .... 

Office, Tenure of . . . . . . . *14 

Office-holders ........ 

Offices, Number of (under provisions of Pendleton bill) 
Office-seekers, . 8, 20-21, 22, 34, 39, 40, 41, 42, 45, 52, 

Omissions in Pendleton bill. 


. 22 

39-45 

• 33 
16, 17, 28 

Hr 55 
4 l » 44 » 5 i 
26, 27, 41 

• 38 

- 11 ’ 43-45 

• 33 


60-62 

33 , 35-37 
8, 36 
• 33 
53 , 54 , 65 
33-37 


Parties, Political. 
Partisan appointments . 
“ Pass examinations ” . 
Patronage 


32 , 50, 55 , 56 
50-51 

. 18 

5 , 3 L 48 , 50-51 


















INDEX. 


75 


Page 

Pearson, Henry G., postmaster of New York . . . .28 

Pendleton, Senator G. H.30, 65 

Pendleton bill .... 7,30-38, 49,50,62,63,64,65,67 

Politicians, Professional . ..56, 59-60 

Post-offices.14, 17-19, 20, 25, 26, 27, 41, 65 

Post-office Department ........ 19-20 

Practical nature of civil-service reform . 13-23, 30-31, 37, 61 

Prerogative of the President. ... 10, 11,40,41,43-45 

President, The.10, 11, 40, 41, 43-45 

Primary meetings .......... 6-7 

Probation . ..28, 29, 49, 65 

Promotion.14, 24, 31, 32 

Providence Board of Trade ........ 24 

Public sentiment . ..38, 52-66 

Publications on civil-service reform.55 


Removals for political reasons . . 7, 18, 36-37, 40, 41, 50-51 

Representative government ....... 8, 66 

Republican! party .......... 56 

Revised Statutes of the United States . . . . . n> 3 2 

Rice, Hon. W. W. . ..64 

Robertson, W. H. (collector of the port of New York) . . 17 

Robinson, Hon. G. D.29, 42 

Rotation in office.8, 24, 36 

Schurz, Hon. C. I 3 > H > 20, 41, 50, 53, 61 

Senate, Functions of the.10 

Senatorial “courtesy”.6, 43-45 

Soldiers and sailors. (Provisions of Revised Statutes) . .12 

Specific plan of civil-service reform.3°~38 

“ Spoils system ” . 5-9, 10, 17, 18, 21, 24, 39-43, 48, 50-51, 58-60 

State Department. 22 

Statesmanship 56-60 

Statistics . . • • • • • . 16, 18, 19, 20, 26 

Statute of 1871. IX > 3 2 > 33 

Statutes. See Revised Statutes.n» 3 2 


Tenure of office . 

Tenure of office act of 1867 
Tenure of commissioners 
Thayer, Adin 
“ Theoretical reformers ” 
Treasury Department . 


• x 4 > 33 > 35 _ 37 
. 44 
. 3 2 
. 9 

. 61 

6, 13, 20-22, 27 


Unbusiness-like, Not.24-29 

Unconstitutional, Not. 

Undemocratic, Not. 5 “ 9 > 4 °> 05 

Unnecessary, Not.. 




















76 


INDEX. 


Page 

War Department.. . .22 

Washington, Number of clerks in ...... 33 

Washington, President George.43 

Webster, Daniel.36-37, 65 

Willis bill.7, 32, 41 

Windom, Hon. William ...... 12, 20-22, 27 

Appendix — Pendleton bill. 67 












o 028 001 885 5 







